A South African correspondent. The Round Table. Volume 56, Issue 222, March 1966.
THERE is no such thing as a South African point of view upon the Rhodesian tragedy. There is not even a single White South African view and a single Black South African view. There is not even one Nationalist Party point of view, or one United Party point of view or one Progressive Party point of view. Feelings are deeply divided; hopes and fears strangely volatile. For the most part puzzlement reigns supreme, an unusual situation in a country where people are not on the whole averse from confident political judgments.
Such dogmatic judgments are not entirely absent from political discussion today. There is a small minority of White opinion which would like to see Britain take stern measures to suppress the “rebellion”—not because of any exaggerated regard for constitutional niceties but because the suppression of a rebellion seems to provide a heaven-sent opportunity for imposing an immediate “one-man one-vote” polity in Rhodesia. Constitutional niceties would have made this impossible had the country been content to remain a colony with the degree of self-government it already possessed. This extreme view is probably shared by a minority of Black political opinion. It is possibly a larger minority than in the case of the Whites because of the habit (only too well ingrained in Black as well as White) of “thinking with the blood”, and of identifying opposition to Rhodesia’s provisional government with the cause of their fellow Blacks; yet it is almost certainly not a very large minority, if only because the organizers and moulders of opinion amongst the African masses have been well and truly harried during the past few years. It is probably true that a coherent mass opinion does not exist. For the same reason, it is an ineffectual as well as a minority point of view.
A rather larger minority amongst the Whites would take exception to the description of the Rhodesian imbroglio as a “tragedy”. These people—many with close Rhodesian connexions—regard the Rhodesian declaration of independence as a heaven-sent opportunity to create a more secure White bastion to the north, incapable of erosion by the wiles of devious British politicians, who are not even masters in their own house, but cringe at the lash of the Commonwealth’s new masters. These people regard the new Commonwealth as a malign Afro-Asian conspiracy in which the original members have lost out in a successful take-over bid (for which the losers, and not the winners, have obligingly found the capital). The departure of Rhodesia from it is regarded as adding to our security.
While the number whose views go as far as this is somewhat restricted, there seem to be large numbers whose reaction to the Rhodesian crisis has in part been satisfaction and relief that we in South Africa seized the opportunity to depart from the Commonwealth while the going was good. Five years ago, the special referendum showed that only 52-3 per cent of the voters were in favour of the declaration of the Republic, and a still smaller proportion would probably have voted in favour had it been realized that this would be a prelude to departure from the Commonwealth. A retrospective referendum held today would certainly endorse the decision to leave the Commonwealth by an overwhelming majority even if only as an ex post facto rationalization. Nor will any expressions of gratitude towards Britain be heard, for the gentler treatment—extending to the retention of virtually all the Ottawa preferences—accorded to the Republic of South Africa in 1961. The ferocity of the retaliatory measures taken against Rhodesia merely evokes the reflection that it was South Africa’s own strength which warded off similar action; and that if the Republic had appeared as vulnerable as Rhodesia in the eyes of British politicians, and if South Africa’s trade had not appeared more vital than Rhodesia’s to the health of the British economy, an attempt might well have been made to inflict similar punishment.
A possible reason for the surprising fluidity of South African opinion on the Rhodesian issue is a similar semi-bewilderment amongst the Rhodesians themselves. It would be idle to suggest that all Rhodesians—or even all White Rhodesians—were, or are, in agreement on the wisdom of their government’s policy. On the other hand, surely there ought to have been cause for reflection in Britain over Sir Roy Welensky’s statement, made before and repeated immediately after the declaration, that, though he opposed its being made, it was the duty of every responsible Rhodesian to give support to his own government, whether it retained the status quo or took the irretrievable step of declaring Rhodesia’s independence.
Mr. Wilson’s plans seem to be based on an estimate that large numbers of such reluctant supporters of independence will return actively to the allegiance from which they severed themselves with heart-burning once they feel the pinch of his retaliatory measures. Time will show whether he has calculated well or ill; but the great Chief Justice Marshall of the United States, in his Life of George Washington (who, like Mr. Ian Smith, had fought with distinction in one of Britain’s wars), might almost have been discussing Rhodesia’s case when expounding the political situation during the American War of Independence. It must be remembered, he said, that the protagonists had been members of the same empire; that, as the Americans were not revolting against any oppression generally experienced, but were resisting, at the outset, claims by Great Britain the pressure of which had not been felt: “it will readily be supposed that some contrariety of opinion must have prevailed in every stage of the controversy.” He pointed out that the laggards and the loyalists could the more readily find justification for lukewarm support of the Revolution, or opposition to it, because of “the nominal government not having been yet changed, and all concurring in professions of allegiance to the British crown”. Even though, as the struggle grew more bitter, opposition to the revolution grew strong enough to give some aspect of civil war to the revolutionary struggle, “the number of those who were determined, at every hazard, to maintain the principle asserted by America, greatly increased …”
This comparison is not introduced in order to suggest that a general parallel can be drawn between the American and Rhodesian revolutions or that the one might assist in forecasting the ultimate outcome of the other. The situations are too dissimilar. One after another Europe’s other major seapowers—France, Spain and the Netherlands—joined the Americans as allies. It is Britain rather than Rhodesia which can count on substantial international support. Nor was there quite the same complication of racial division within the American society. But the American experience is a warning not to assume too readily that because many White Rhodesians viewed the declaration of independence with trepidation or reluctance one may safely predict that they can quickly and easily be brought to a breaking point. No reasonable man could have forecast that Washington, commander of the forces of a people which had begun the war deeply divided, could first have kept these forces together and then have emerged from the hardships of a winter in Valley Forge with an army capable of formidable resistance.
Enlarging the Conflict
The British Government may well have miscalculated the Rodhesian reaction. So far there are ample signs that it has been solidify resistance, to reinforce the more intransigent, and to render impossible the emergence of a party of compromise, either because of the instinctive psychological reactions of members of a group which is threatened from outside or because the tough leaders of the struggle for independence are prepared to take more and more drastic measures to insure against what they would regard as treason from within. The British Government’s measures, in fact, seem much more likely to enlarge the area of conflict, suffering and distrust, than to bring the Rhodesian quarrel to a satisfactory conclusion. As a pointer towards the general ineptitude of Mr. Wilson’s handling of the situation, one might take stock of what has become the typical United States picture of the tyrannical George III—to whom, as Marshall pointed out, the colonists were still professing allegiance even after fighting had broken out—and then look at Mr. Wilson’s naive attempts to reach the Rhodesian electorate over the head of Mr. Smith’s government, with personal messages from the Queen. This is the sort of manoeuvre that Disraeli might have pulled off; but Disraeli would have had the wit not to waste such a gesture, at such a time, on a forlorn chance.
South Africans are accustomed to the way in which Dr. Verwoerd’s opponents in all parts of the world seem to relish handing him, on a platter, constant opportunities for putting them hopelessly in the wrong and for standing out himself as a model of patience and long-suffering, with a meticulous regard for the niceties of political and diplomatic behaviour. They feel somewhat bewildered and disturbed to discover that Mr. Smith has enjoyed a similar succession of chances to display himself as correct, patient in the face of provocation, and yet firm. Examples are the prompt Rhodesian decision to take over the payments when British pensions were withheld from residents in Rhodesia; the lack of any counter-demonstration against Zambia; and the continuation of supplies to Zambia, except in so far as the stoppage of oil into Rhodesia was immediately followed by a stoppage of its outflow (and Mr. Smith even offered to rail to Zambia all oil and fuel refined from whatever crude oil Britain cared to allow into the Umtali refinery for the purpose, though this was rejected by Zambia). An export tax was placed on the export of Wankie coal and coke only as a counter to economic warfare against the Rhodesian balance of payments, and payment was demanded in particular currencies only when sterling payments were made nugatory by British government action. Even his one major departure from the stricter canons of financial probity, namely the default on Rhodesian government debt, guaranteed by the United Kingdom Government, has been adroitly placed at the feet of the British Government which set up the Reserve Bank of Rhodesia in exile, as a means of seizing control of Rhodesia’s reserves of foreign exchange. Britain has been placed in the invidious position of claiming that the only legitimate government in Rhodesia is the United Kingdom Government itself, represented by the Governor who refuses to move, and operating by Order in Council; that to this “legal” government all Rhodesian government assets belong; but that Rhodesian government liabilities remain the responsibility of the “illegal” government of Mr. Smith. Could chicanery go much further than this?
Moreover, however much one might sympathize with Mr. Wilson’s desire to ensure that Black Africans are safeguarded against oppression, the fact remains that Rhodesia’s 1961 constitution did provide virtually the only system of franchise which has been devised in Africa to ensure the rapid emergence of a responsible but multiracial democracy; that it was essentially the proscribed African parties, the Zimbabwe African National Union and the People’s Caretaker Council, with their violent internecine struggles, who were preventing Africans from, in any measure, participating in the assumption of this responsibility; and that Mr. Ian Smith, though by no means enamoured of it, was at least vocally insistent that he would provide whatever guarantees were required that his government would respect this constitution. Though there may well be doubts about whether any effective guarantee can be found, it remains pure prevarication on the British Government’s part for the Commonwealth Relations Office to have issued a statement (October 9,1965) that the reason for withholding full independence from Rhodesia was the policy of successive British governments of bringing remaining British territories to independence on the basis of democratic government. This is in the face of the fact that one after another, virtually all the African States of the Commonwealth, on attaining independence, have quickly scrapped their new constitutions for one-party dictatorships.
In many South African eyes Mr. Smith is reprehensible for showing impatience when perhaps on the verge of a satisfactory compromise; and Mr. Wilson is reprehensible for having underestimated his opponents’ tenacity and for having been forced through the failure of bluster to enter upon a chain of actions of increasing severity; yet the fact remains that Mr. Wilson inherited an impossible situation. The real culprits were the two previous Conservative administrations.
The Enemies of Partnership
In South Africa, the Tomlinson Commission’s Report on the Socio-Economic Development of the African Reserves was signed in October 1954. One of its members, Professor J. H. R. Bisschop, had signed it subject to a serious reservation. He did not believe that the measures for separate development of Black and White would work, yet argued that it would be wrong to decide this without experiment:
The practicability of the “segregation” formula must be fully investigated and tested out. If, in due course, it is found unpractical, and I greatly fear that it will be found so, progressive integration with its economic and political consequences will have to be accepted.
To many, such an uncommitted, pragmatic attitude seemed a ray of hope for the future. By all means press on with the development of the native reserves; but be prepared to find that the solution to the problems of Black and White living together in the same country did not lie in that direction. Since, in the previous year, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland had come into being, pledged to a programme of progressive “partnership”, it appeared that two great experiments might be conducted in neighbouring territories side by side and could be judged by their results. In one or the other (or perhaps in a judicious combination of the best features of both) a way might be found towards a juster and more harmonious future.
Though it is true that both Rhodesian “partnership” and South African “separate development” proved far too slow off the mark, the auguries for a gradually increasing harmonization of the true interests of Black and White in the new Federation would have been favourable but for three obstacles, of varying degrees of difficulty. The first—at that time a minor difficulty, though now unfortunately of major significance—was the indifference, halfheartedness or downright opposition of many of the Whites to the changes in their pattern of life which partnership involved. The second, much more formidable, was the—perhaps understandable—suspicious eye cast by many Africans upon the partnership experiment. It was not only a question of the masses not quite believing until they saw it really happening. The most serious threat there could have been to the political future of the leaders of African nationalism was the success of an experiment leading to a harmonious partnership between Black and White.
But the real death-blow to Africa’s greatest opportunity was the reluctance of the Conservative administration in Great Britain to give support to the Federation it had created, and give it a chance to survive the constant sniping from within which was conducted by nationalist extremists on both sides; that is, by upholders of White supremacy and privileged status on the one hand (amongst whom Mr. Smith must be included) and by protagonists of an immediate Black take-over on the other. Apparently daunted by its own daring in insisting upon the creation of the Federation in 1953, over the protests made on the part of Nyasaland, and the adverse vote in Parliament of the Labour Party (under whose administration the scheme had originated in 1951), the Conservative administration never showed signs of firmness in ensuring that the Federation got a chance. By pandering to its enemies on the left, it encouraged continuing agitation against it; and it not only slowed down the rate at which the administrations of Lord Malvern and Sir Roy Welensky in the Federation and Mr. Todd and Sir Edgar Whitehead in Southern Rhodesia were capable of hastening African progress, but eroded their support amongst the electorate. This was the decisive factor in the build-up of the power of their enemies of the right, and the eventual eclipse of the Federal Party by the Rhodesia Front. If Mr. Smith is a monster come to plague Mr. Wilson, the British Prime Minister’s Conservative predecessors were the Frankensteins who conjured him up.
The decline in the fortunes of the United Federal Party in Southern Rhodesia—from its sweeping victory in January 1954, through a 2 to 1 majority in favour of the new constitution in July 1961, to defeat in the elections of December 1962, and extinction in those of May 1965—can be ascribed to two main causes: one is the boycott of registration as parliamentary voters ordered by the leaders of the more extreme nationalist African political organizations; the other is the treatment to which the Federation and the Federal Party were subjected by the British Parliament. Without this, the constantly re-grouping White opposition would not have found an effective electoral appeal.
Welensky and Whitehead Betrayed
Thinking South Africans are deeply distressed and concerned over events in Rhodesia, with their threats to our own prosperity and peace as well as that of our neighbours. However inept Mr. Wilson may have been, in South African eyes, in his handling of the situation, there is some sympathy with him on his misfortune in inheriting an impasse so impossible to emerge from with any hope that lasting injury has not been done. For all this follows directly on the break-up of Federation at the end of 1963 and the sordid manoeuvring which preceded it—both before and following Dr. Banda’s visit to London in July 1962. What effect could have been expected in Rhodesia when a mockery was made of the whole basis of the Federal Party’s achievement?
As a direct result, the political careers of Sir Roy Welensky and Sir Edgar Whitehead were broken. Yet Sir Roy was a man who could have been trusted to carry through his part of the bargain to make “partnership” between Black and White the keynote of the Federation. He could also have exercised enough force of personality to carry the white electors with him in the gradual removal of their privileges had not the new coyness of the British Government, after its sudden Federation stampede in 1953, roused fears (as it turned out, justified fears) that he would be sacrificed whenever it turned convenient. And Sir Edgar Whitehead, from all accounts, behind his apparently reserved and almost Hofmeyr-like dry detachment, has, like Jannie Hofmeyr himself, a passionate yet unsentimental regard for the advancement of the African. Had the British Government been willing to concede to these men, willingly and from the start, half of what Mr. Wilson seemed ready to concede to Mr. Smith as a last resort; or to trust them half as well to carry through a policy in which they really believed as the British Prime Minister was to trust Mr. Smith to carry out a policy in which he does not believe—but agreed to follow as a matter merely of obligation to respect the 1961 Constitution and as part of a bargain—poor Mr. Wilson would never have had this problem, nor Mr. Smith, upon his hands. And though the petty pinpricks of refusing to accept Rhodesia’s right to appoint a representative to Portugal (in spite of established precedents) were inflicted by the Labour Government, the much more serious affront of refusing to issue an invitation to Mr. Smith to attend the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Conference in July 1964 was given by the Conservative administration. When Lord Malvern had attended for the Federation in 1956, he had been invited to continue the representation hitherto accorded to Southern Rhodesia. In the words of the official communique:
The Prime Ministers considered the particular position of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in relation to meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. Taking into account the 20 years’ attendance, first by the Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, and now by the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, they agreed that they would welcome the continued participation of the Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers.
We must now await the outcome of the present battle of wills; but with the foreknowledge that, whatever happens, great damage will have been done to Africa. If Rhodesia wins, there will be a legacy of bitterness—not so much within the country perhaps, because much of that, with time, may heal—but new bitterness between a Black Africa which will have been thwarted and the whole of White-controlled Africa. And in Rhodesia, there would be continued attempts at subversion from malcontents at home, but more particularly from disappointed politicians outside, leading naturally to stricter measures of internal security. And this more repressive policy would be enforced by an administration by no means dedicated to the principle of partnership. Mr. Smith had, indeed, resigned his seat as a Federal Party Member in protest against that party’s adoption of the new constitution (though subsequently, in last-minute negotiations, he had declared that he was willing to give guarantees that his government would respect it) and against its decision to do away with the Land Apportionment Act. A Rhodesian victory would also mean a blow to Britain’s prestige comparable with that suffered over Suez.
If Rhodesia loses, as a result of measures of blockade, the consequence will be the destruction more particularly of an economy which, for all its—steadily lessening—inequalities, has been one of the best-ordered and most progressive in Africa; but also of a polity which—for all its faults—was virtually the only one left on the continent with some real promise of developing a genuine partnershp between Black and White. If the conflict is to end merely with the subjugation of the present White controllers of Rhodesia, the result will not be an evolution away from the divisions amongst the inhabitants of Africa on colour lines but towards increasing such divisions, and substituting black supremacy in this area for white supremacy. It would indeed be another victory for the apartheid idea over that of partnership; for apartheid is not simply a White South African idea. The Black representatives who boycotted Mr. Wilson when he addressed the United Nations were applying their brand of apartheid. Indeed the South African version of separate development, in separate areas, in so far as it is implemented and proves feasible, is perhaps a more co-operative form of apartheid than one in which all Whites are expected to play the role of expatriates in exclusively Black-controlled communities.
For the sake of Africa, it is essential that this madness should stop; and that both sides should show a willingness to climb down, and to do so quickly. The shorter the period of conflict and—contrary to what Mr. Wilson is saying—the less damage is inflicted on Rhodesia, the more likely is it that progress will be resumed, even though the rate of progress achieved in the 1950s may never be achieved again.
Damage to South Africa
Meanwhile South Africa has economic and political interests which are being adversely involved, and it would only be candid point out that she has, for this injury, a much stronger justifiable grievance against one party to the dispute than against the other. South Africa was hardly affected, as such, by the Rhodesians’ decision merely to snatch the trappings of formal independence to add to the forty-year-old realities of virtual independence which they had enjoyed. They feared that the United Kingdom, in its new mood and under new pressures, would be tempted to override the conventions which were the guarantees of Rhodesian self-rule with the legal technicality that there could be no limitation to the exercise of its sovereignty by the British Parliament. Whether such a fear is justified or not—and some of the actions taken by the British Government to counter the Rhodesian demonstration suggests they were not entirely groundless—is irrelevant here. The point is that the mere declaration of independence had no effects which were themselves felt by South Africa.
The case of the countermeasures taken by the United Kingdom is quite different. South Africa’s legitimate interests have been adversely affected by measures which Britain has taken, which have been designed to cause economic distress in Rhodesia and which already have caused economic distress in Zambia as well. They are being increasingly adversely affected by British attempts to cause administrative chaos with the intention of bringing down Mr. Smith’s government. South Africa has a very large interest in the continued prosperity and orderly government of Rhodesia and Zambia. Although by 1963 South African exports to Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi had fallen by over a quarter from the high levels of the later 1950s, they were still of a greater value than exports to any country—other than the United Kingdom and the United States. Similarly, though South African investments in Rhodesia, Zambia and Malawi had fallen in the course of 1964, South African assets in these countries at the end of the year still totalled R333 million (£166 million)—far and away the most important foreign investments we possess. South Africa has, then, a real grievance against the country which has endangered the solvency and reduced the economic capacity of such important trading partners; and, in equity, might well have a claim for compensation from Great Britain for any losses sustained as a result of her manoeuvre in regard to the Rhodesian Reserve Bank. Quite apart, then, from any “thinking with the blood”, which results in a sentimental bias towards the Rhodesian side of the dispute, there is a more reasoned opposition to British policy, which has taken precipitate steps of increasing severity, damaging South Africa’s interests, and causing grave harm in the territories of the former Federation. Moreover, this has been done in a frenzied effort to control a situation due as much to lack of sincere purpose in her own policy as to the intransigence of the Rhodesia Front; and, win or lose, the situation seems bound to be worse in the end than it was at the start.
In all this the attitude of the South African Government has been most commendable. Dr. Verwoerd has proclaimed his Government’s complete abstention from interference in other people’s affairs, and has announced that South Africa, which opposes boycotts on principle, will not participate in any form of boycott. South Africa, he said, will trade with Rhodesia whether England likes it or not and will trade with Zambia whether Rhodesia likes it or not. Apart from that, his Government has maintained a most discreet and welcome silence. No one can accuse South Africa of having added any fuel to the flames. Sir de Villiers Graaff has indeed urged the announcement of defacto recognition for an independent Rhodesia. The Prime Minister seems wiser, in not committing us to any formal act of recognition, or refusal of recognition, until it is apparent whether independence can be maintained or not. In our de facto dealings, through the very act of non-discrimination, what might be termed a “defacto” defacto recognition seems to be involved. Dr. Steytler, Leader of the Progressive Party, on the other hand, leans towards the British side in the dispute, basing his conclusions on constitutional grounds. He does not appear to have unanimous support within his party and this is only partly, perhaps, because constitutional law is difficult for a layman to understand. In this, the Progressive Party is not singular. Many in the United Party believe that the Prime Minister’s course of action is wiser than the one their leader wishes to urge, whilst some Nationalists are no doubt restive over Dr. Verwoerd’s passivity and would prefer South Africa to show even stronger support for the Smith regime than the United Party Leader has demanded.