Rhodesia - the consequence of political correctness

I moved to Rhodesia in 1967 and, for 13 years, lived, worked, married and started a family there. It is difficult for me to write about the beauty of that country and its people due to the great injustice that was committed, in 1980, when the government was handed over to Robert Mugabe’s thugs by people who knew the risks but were willing to sacrifice the population for political expediency.

Last November a letter was published in the American Spectator which is truthful and factual – and worth repeating here. Thank you H.W.  Crocker III. I am hoping that many will read this and get an idea why I find the situation in present-day Zimbabwe so tragic.  For most readers, Rhodesia is just a footnote in history.  For me it was a very personal and powerful influence in my life and the lives of my children.

The American Spectator on Rhodesia - finally the truth written by an American without all the PC garbage.

Ian Smith lived to see all his worst predictions come true.

On 11 November 1965, Ian Smith, prime minister of the British colony of Rhodesia, signed his country's unilateral declaration of independence, giving birth to a new nation that would, rather heroically, seek to maintain its way of life for the next fifteen years. That way of life was not -- as critics will be quick to allege -- based on racism, but on freedom, the freedom that was vouchsafed Rhodesia by the British Empire. It was the freedom that was lost by Rhodesia's transformation into Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It's a transformation from which even we, as American, have something to learn.

The Rhodesians, in fact, based their declaration of independence on our own, though they charmingly reaffirmed their allegiance to the queen. Thinking themselves "more British than the British," they announced their independence on Remembrance Day, marking the end of World War I (what we mark as Veterans' Day), to remind Britain that when she fought at great cost to defend freedom, the rule of law, and the rights of small nations, Rhodesia had been at her side. In the Second World War, indeed, Ian Smith himself had flown Hawker Hurricanes and Spitfires for the RAF. A flight accident had smashed up his face (which required extensive plastic surgery) and left him with numerous serious injuries that took months to heal. He returned to duty, was shot down over Italy, and eventually made his escape back to Allied lines.

More than that, though, the Rhodesians had done what is the measure of a man -- they had gone into the wilderness and been able to re-create their civilization. While they had a reputation as outdoorsy, beer-swilling hearties, the great Rhodesian writer (and liberal) Peter Godwin and Ian Hancock estimated in their classic study of Rhodesia, 'Rhodesians Never Die,' "that probably no other transplanted English-speakers had done more -- with similar resources -- to reproduce and practice the parent culture."

It is a question worth asking ourselves: how many of us could hack our way into the jungle and re-create the United States? The more culturally pessimistic, or multiculturally inclined, might even wonder whether that would be a good thing anyway.

The Rhodesians had no doubts -- or few. They were so confident in their civilization that they were willing to endure international ostracism. They were so certain they were on the right side of history, and certain of their martial valor, that they volunteered to send troops to Vietnam (an offer that the embarrassed Lyndon Johnson administration declined to accept). They were so certain that they stood athwart tyranny, that they sacrificed their sons and fortified their farms in an African bush war that thrilled the armchair adventurers among the readers of Soldier of Fortune magazine, which sold "Be A Man Among Men, Rhodesian Army" t-shirts, based on a Rhodesian recruiting poster.

Smith believed that one-man, one-vote in Africa meant free elections once.

He was loath to submit his country to the chaos, socialism, violence, and dictatorship that he was certain would follow elections based on a universal franchise (which, as he pointed out, had difficulties that Western critics were not likely to consider: for instance, how to accurately register voters when most rural-born black Africans had no birth certificates). Smith was careful to gain the support of the country's tribal chiefs, he stated that his goal was evolution not revolution on the way to expanding the franchise (which was tied to income and property qualifications), and he affirmed that he would not risk Rhodesia's multi-party elections, free press, independent judiciary, and free economy with a mass electorate that might be inclined to do away with them.

In the end, of course, the British brokered a deal. Lord Carrington and almost all the other delegates to the so-called Lancaster House Agreement of 1979 were convinced that Robert Mugabe, regarded as the most radical of the Communist-backed insurgents, would be defeated in the elections arranged for 1980. Ian Smith thought otherwise. He was certain Mugabe would win because he belonged to the Shona tribe, which represented eighty percent of Rhodesia's population, and because Mugabe would be the most effective at voter intimidation. Smith was proved right, as he usually was -- though he got no credit for it.

Smith lived to see all his worst predictions come true; had he been able to read his obituaries he would have seen that liberal opinion blamed him for it. Smith's solace in his declining years was the popularity he had among black Zimbabweans who saw him as a symbol of unbreakable resistance to Mugabe. If you want to see the Rhodesia Smith defended, you can watch a video or two on YouTube and see black soldiers (most of the Rhodesian army was black) marching on parade past mostly white civilians, including an official dressed like an 18th-century town crier; you can see the sons of productive farmers and businessmen, who made Rhodesia an economic success, shouldering rifles to defend their homes and their liberties.

And if you want to see the tribute that vice pays to virtue -- or that Zimbabwe pays to Rhodesia and the British Empire -- just note how Zimbabwe's judges still wear white wigs, how Mugabe's henchmen make a show of owning farms (taken from white farmers who once produced plenty, and whose fields now lie barren while Zimbabweans starve), and how Mugabe still goes through the formality of having elections (as long as his goons ensure that he wins). Zimbabweans think of British institutions as having legitimacy, even if they are deployed as part of Robert Mugabe's charades.

So what can America learn from gallant Rhodesia? For one thing, we can learn to judge nations by the values they uphold, not the electoral processes they observe. We can see why Western "colonialism" was oftentimes better than the alternative. And most of all, perhaps, we might learn not to take our own liberties for granted. In every generation, they are only a demagogue away from being taken from us.

Letter to the Editor from H.W. Crocker III, a best selling author. His most recent book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire.

My wife, Joan, with our two young sons at Victoria Falls - August 1975

 

 

In 1971 we built a small house, where we would live for ten years.

Spiders - A true story

Scary spider story.  What would 007 do?

I am not a squeamish person. If I hadn't realized this at a young age it certainly came home to me in my first year of university Zoology labs. Eventually my majors were Zoology and Entomology - neither course suited to the faint-hearted. Along with many fellow students I saw the 1962 James Bond movie, Dr. No, in which the villainous Dr. Julius No attempted to eliminate Sean Connery by having the bad guys put large, hairy, poisonous, black Tarantulas in his bed. Being a student of the biological sciences I was one of the few in the viewing audience who knew that, in real life, Tarantulas are not deadly to humans, but the squeals and gasps of horror from most around me did cause me some discomfort and I later had a few restless nights thinking about it.

Fast forward about 15 years. I was serving in an Army Reserve Unit in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and was bivouacked with seven members of my patrol in a partially constructed encampment in the Zambezi Valley. The Zambezi Valley was not our favorite destination for a 4 week military call-up in October. It is a remote, low lying, wild area, where daytime summer temperatures reach over 100 degrees often. As the summer rains begin to arrive, the afternoon sky fills with huge cumulus clouds and the humidity soars. October is appropriately called "suicide month" in that part of southern Africa.  

Before continuing with my spidery tale of horror I should describe the sun spider. In scientific circles the sun spider (or camel spider, wind scorpion, or roman spider) is known as a Solifuge (from the Latin meaning "fleeing from the sun"). Descriptions include phrases such as:
"A diverse and fascinating, yet poorly known, order of specialized, mostly nocturnal, cursorial (means "adapted to or involving running") hunting arachnids notable for their massively powerful two-segmented chelicerae (read "jaws"), voracious appetite, and tremendous speed."
"Solifuges vary from a few millimeters to 10 centimeters (4 inches) in length and look superficially like stout, hairy, fast-running spiders with an extra pair of legs (leg-like, sensory pedipalps, held out in front of the body)."

"Their head has a very characteristic shape with powerful jaws or chelicerae with which they seize and chew their prey."
"The whole animal is covered by long sensory hairs or setae which glisten in the sun.
"In some species retreats are located under rocks, logs and other debris which are merely scrapes in the ground made by loosening the soil with their chelicerae and moving it away with their feet."
"They have an insatiable appetite and sometimes gorge themselves until almost ready to pop. After subduing a prey item, some solifugids bite off the preys' legs, then proceed to eat it head first. They have an incredibly high metabolism and never seem to stand still for a moment. They are attracted by lights and are commonly found near campfires where they are more frequently encountered."

As a further warning I will tell you in advance that the sun spider that I encountered was at least 4 inches long and very soft and hairy. If you feel uncomfortable reading about fat, hairy, spiders please stop here.

Back to the story. My patrol had set up our folding stretchers in two adjoining rooms in a crude structure made from concrete cinder blocks. There were two window openings, with no frames, and one door opening, without a frame or actual door. The floor was smooth concrete. The roof was corrugated iron sheeting screwed onto wood trusses. The astute reader can imagine how this metal roof accentuated the 100 degree summer heat during the day. The unskilled builders who had secured the corrugated iron sheets onto the wood beams had located the screws in the lower part of each corrugation. The consequence of this would not become evident to any of us until it rained, when the water would pour through the screw holes into the rooms below.
In any event, day after day, the humidity continued to build and we hoped for a cooling thundershower. Eventually it came, preceded by incredible lightning flashes and deafening thunder. We had all gone to bed. As the rain began to fall, the water began to pour onto us from the misplaced, but evenly spaced, holes screwed into the metal roofing. Every 2ft 6in was a thin but copious stream of water. The four of us in my room raced to move our beds and our backpacks into the narrow spaces between the water spouts, and then jumped back onto our beds to wait out the storm.

The only place I could position my stretcher was with one end, the head end, against the rough cinder block wall. I lay down again and, because the air was cooler now, pulled the sleeping bag loosely over me. I was barefoot, of course, and wore (for the really curious reader) a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I was now able to settle down, with my small pillow and head against the wall and with the rest of me and my gear out of the rain. Apart from the frequent flashes of lightning the room was in total darkness.

Within a minute or two I heard scurrying sounds across the floor and on the wall near my head. I started to reach under my bed for a flashlight but was interrupted by a loud "plop" on my pillow. Suddenly my senses, especially my hearing, became acute and every movement of the sun spider near my right ear was magnified. My first reaction was to reach down with both hands and draw the two flaps of my sleeping bag up to my chin and hold it there as tightly as I could. I had a flash-back of James Bond and his Tarantulas and instinctively tried to prevent this large crawling creature that had joined me on my pillow from getting into my lower regions. What would 007 do?

As I lay completely motionless, the soft, furry, hairy creature moved onto my hair and up onto my forehead, coming to a stop with its body on my nose. Its rear legs were touching my closed eyelids and its forelegs were touching my upper lip.

Can you imagine how hard it was to remain motionless with a furry appendage touching my upper lip, or to resist twitching my nose? This 4 inch long, sun spider sat there for the longest time - probably just a few seconds. It then crawled across my chin and down onto my neck and, denied access to my sleeping bag, eventually plopped onto the floor to join its dozen friends and associates scurrying around looking for something to eat.

I threw my sleeping bag open, jumped out of bed and grabbed my flashlight with one hand and a boot with the other. The other men did the same and within minutes, the walls and floor of our little shelter were spattered with the goopy remains of almost a dozen sun spiders. Some escaped through the window and door openings through which they had entered. By now the rain had tailed off. I moved my bed away from the wall, made sure there were no spiders in my bedding, boots or backpack and lay down to sleep again. Another day in paradise had passed.

Over the years I have told this true story many times, enjoying the reaction it gets from arachnophobes. It is interesting to see that some of our troops serving in the Middle East have posted similar stories on the internet describing their encounters with a very similar "camel spider," also a member of the Solifuge family. So, when you go to bed tonight, sleep tight and don't let the spiders bite.