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2008-09-23 Africa Subsaharan

How the West Sentenced Rhodesia to Communism

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Posted by Besoeker 2008-09-23 00:00|| || Front Page|| [10326 views ] Top

#1 When Soviet-sympathizer and terrorist Nelson Mandela desired to take South Africa away from the Afrikaners...
How great was white-controlled Rhodesia compared to black Marxist-controlled Zimbabwe?

Sorry but millions of black africans weren't going to be ruled by white europeans a fraction their number circa 2008 regardless of what the West did or didn't do during the Cold War.

Posted by Cherelet and Tenille1095 2008-09-23 04:03|| 2008-09-23 04:03|| Front Page Top

#2 Whence the obsession with "ruled"?

They didn't have to be "ruled" by whites. They could have been partners in governance and economics.

They could have abandoned their defective (no other word will do) culture and economic system and joined the government as enlightened equals to the whites living there. Had they done so thirty years ago Rhodesia would be a strong, wealth-generating, vibrant country with ecnonomic opportunity for people of all skin color.

But instead they took the worst concepts the West has contrived - collectivism and hyperregulatory central planning and cultural Marxism - and combined it with the worst Africa contrived - tribalism and thuggish autocracy - and everyone in the country is worse off.

In the end, it wasn't "rule by whites" that rankled them, it was participation in democracy and capitalism that was too daunting for the native African leaders and their sympathizers amongst leftists living in the West - people who wanted some form of communism to flourish somewhere, so they consigned third world countries throughout the world to live like that as though they were science projects designed to find a way, some way, for communism to work.

Posted by no mo uro 2008-09-23 06:04|| 2008-09-23 06:04|| Front Page Top

#3 They didn't have to be "ruled" by whites. They could have been partners in governance and economics.

You do realise that the entire political system of post-colonial Rhodesia was based on resistance to Majority Rule, wherein 95% of the population of Rhodesia were effectively disenfranchised?

Posted by Cherelet and Tenille1095 2008-09-23 07:03|| 2008-09-23 07:03|| Front Page Top

#4 One thing cannot be argued: both whites and blacks were better off under the white-run Rhodesian Government than they have been under a black-run Zimbabwean Government.

This isn't surprising, as most of Africa was safer and more productive under colonialism than it has been since. Africa had more of a presence in the world economic system in 1960 than it has today, largely due to the abysmal decline in the quality of governance from colonial rule to independence. Hell, even the Italians were orders of magnitude better for Somalia than Somali governments have been.

That said, J.S. Mill said history is replete with examples where people have decided it's better to be ruled badly by themselves than well by others. Africa is the poster child for that statement. Maybe the coming imposition of Chinese colonial rule will straighten Africa up. It couldn't get much worse.

Posted by Jolutch Mussolini7800 2008-09-23 07:15|| 2008-09-23 07:15|| Front Page Top

#5 The West has a notoriously bad habit of betraying countries which defend freedom. During President Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, he sentenced the people of Eastern Europe to communist rule following World War II when he connived with "Uncle Joe" Stalin at the Yalta Conference.

Oh stuff it. The friggin Red Army was sitting on the damn terrain. The Western allies were struggling in Italy and elsewhere just to make headway when Yalta occurred without anyone having any real idea of where their forces would be by VE day, if there was going to be one. Normandy was so iffy, that Ike wrote a prepared statement in case of failure. By the time the armies met along the Elbe it was pretty much set by physical presence who'd end up occupying what afterward. Short of going to war directly with the Soviets, no one was going to dislodge them from the land they sat on. And in 1945 the boys at the newly built Pentagon were busy trying to move the Army in Europe to the Pacific for the forthcoming assault upon the home islands of Japan. Only a few knew of the bombs or even knew what the ultimate effect would be. War with the Soviets wasn't on the planning table either then or after Japan, rather it was demobilization.

When Serbia--an ally of the United States in both World War I and World War II..

The Serbs were a major player in starting WWI in 1914 [giving us the world we'd live and die in great numbers for next 80 years]. The US joined the French and British in 1917 because of German submarine warfare and the Zimmerman telegram, not for Serbia. And Serbia didn't exist in WWII, it was Yugoslavia. And all players in Yugoslavia worked both sides of the conflict for their own interests.

Posted by Procopius2k 2008-09-23 10:05|| 2008-09-23 10:05|| Front Page Top

#6 We interfere too much where we shouldn't, like Israel, and we interfere too little where we should, like Venezuela.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-09-23 10:20|| 2008-09-23 10:20|| Front Page Top

#7 One problem was throughout the cold war we only seemed to have two options. Capitalism and Communism. If the Capitalists were in charge the Soviets pumped money in favor of rebellion and vice-versa.

What we needed was a third way. Some good old Swedish Socialism coming in. Who cares if they have a nanny state that makes them economically unviable as long as they are peaceful and free from European dominance.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-09-23 10:34|| 2008-09-23 10:34|| Front Page Top

#8 Sorry but millions of black africans weren't going to be ruled by white europeans a fraction their number circa 2008 regardless of what the West did or didn't do during the Cold War.

Ya know, the whole 'minority rule' thing doesn't seem to have stopped Mugabe.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-09-23 11:05|| 2008-09-23 11:05|| Front Page Top

#9 What we needed was a third way. Some good old Swedish Socialism coming in. Who cares if they have a nanny state that makes them economically unviable as long as they are peaceful and free from European dominance.

Back when Chavez was just another candidate running for office in Venezuela (after the government had given him whatever sort of amnesty for the coup attempts he had made) he said he wanted to find a third way.

So yah, the capitalists and westerners are always convenient suckers for that. It works for the communists every time.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-09-23 11:31|| 2008-09-23 11:31|| Front Page Top

#10 A third way that is just redressed Communism is not a third way. I'm talking more about the third way from Labor in the UK. I wouldn't want to live under it myself, but it's better than Communism and more acceptable after European imperialism seems to have soured many Africans on Capitalism.

The third way truly should have come from a neutral non-European like India, but they happily sidled up to the Soviets when we didn't give them enough attention.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-09-23 11:38|| 2008-09-23 11:38|| Front Page Top

#11 It is also possible a third way could have come from the US if things had gone differently during the Suez crisis and the French and British hadn't given up, voted labor in and closed shop.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-09-23 11:40|| 2008-09-23 11:40|| Front Page Top

#12 Swedish Socialism requires a wealthy and orderly society to support the expenses. Nowhere in Africa is or has been that kind of society, ancient Egypt included. (The Egyptians worked or starved except for the tiny aristocracy, almost all of which worked as hard as the peasants. The pharaoh and his chief wife were as much active heads of the priesthood as the pharaoh was ruler of the country, from what I can gather.)

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-09-23 13:02|| 2008-09-23 13:02|| Front Page Top

#13 Wealthy, organized and homogeneous.

Posted by lotp 2008-09-23 13:14|| 2008-09-23 13:14|| Front Page Top

#14 I agree, blacks werent going to accept white minority rule. The nominal policy of giving the franchise to a small minority of wealthy blacks (while any poor illiterate white could vote) wasnt going to change that. And no, being ruled by a minority political party or military isnt the same, cause it doesnt mean you are excluded by the very conditions of your birth, in ways that constantly humiliate you.

and Zimbabwe isnt condemned to communism (even if you want to call what exists there now communism, though IIUC there is still private property there in sectors other than agriculture) There is political change happening there right now.

Odd too that teh above is a sympathiser with Slobo, who WAS a communist. BTW, there was no invasion, albanians had lived in europe since Roman times. They CONVERTED to Islam. Well mostly. Many didnt. The ones who were still Christians ALSO opposed Serb rule, and ALSO were subject to ethnic cleansing.

and most the ones who were muslim were not Islamists.

Posted by liberalhawk 2008-09-23 13:22|| 2008-09-23 13:22|| Front Page Top

#15 Mugabe had lots of choices of how to rule after gaining power. He chose poorly, nay almost perversely.

He either killed or ran off most of those who had the expertise to actually produce wealth in the country (black and white). He has been eating the seed stock ever since.

This did not have to be a black-white thing. Mugabe, however, chose to base his governance on that ethnic tension, thus making him no better and for the average man on the street far worse than the leaders of Rhodesia.

Posted by remoteman 2008-09-23 13:40|| 2008-09-23 13:40|| Front Page Top

#16 As a minor academic point, one of ZANU-PF's predecessors was backed by China.

And no, being ruled by a minority political party or military isnt the same, cause it doesnt mean you are excluded by the very conditions of your birth, in ways that constantly humiliate you.

The Zimbawean regime (ZANU-PF) is controlled by the Shona. Not a minority, but it does mean exclusion by conditions of birth.

Posted by Pappy 2008-09-23 14:56|| 2008-09-23 14:56|| Front Page Top

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