Tell me about Rhodesia

Why did the whole world abandon it?
Has it been vindicated by the state of modern Zimbabwe?

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>Has it been vindicated by the state of modern Zimbabwe?
Maybe not Zimbabwe alone, but certainly the comparison of Zimbabwe and Botswana. Botswana was far kinder to the whites and partly because of that, their country functions much better, especially considering they are landlocked.

>Why did the whole world abandon it?
It didn't want to give up everything at once and wanted to ease into majority control.
>Has it been vindicated by the state of modern Zimbabwe?
It's far superior to Zimbabwe in every way if that is what you mean.

The incompetence of Ian Smith's bunch is responsible for that idiot Mugabe in charge, and the current situation could have been avoided if they had despooked themselves of white supremacist blinders and negotiated reforms early on. It wad most 3-5% white Rhodesian; doubling down on delusional policies while treating the African Rhodesians that were fighting and bleeding in the jungles alongside them like dirt was a big mistake.

Smith's government's best realistic bet was adopting something like the Internal Settlement right off the bat, with black Rhodesians in office and some guaranteed seats in the Parliament for white Rhodesians, along with massive land reform. Would've avoided a bloody guerilla slog and Mugabe ever rising to power. Instead, they decided to ban political parties (discrediting the legal pro-black representation parties as "uncle toms") and lockrf up the leaders of the more militant groups all together in a remote gulag, where they had to work together to survive and were barely supervised, allowing them to spend their days arguing and refining their theories and plans. Then they did the 2nd dumbest thing and let the prisoners walk out alive.

A less ethical but perhaps more plausible option for the Smith government to stay in power would've been giving the Ndebele and othrr minority ethnic groups equal/near equal rights & privileges & using their rivalry with the Shona majority as a means of cementing their allegiance. The Ndebele are descendents of a Zulu army that broke off and conquered the Shona, ruling over them until Cecil Rhodes showed up. They made up roughly a quarter of the populace of what was then Rhodesia, with the Shona at about 60%ish. Having one local people do all the dirty work so the hatred of the colonized is more focused on them than the colonial overlords a classic divide and conquer strategy. Hell, one of Mugabe's first post war atrocities was a genocide of the Ndebele with the help of North Korean troops.

>Ian Smith is responsible for Mugabe

Yes because all the ZANU thugs who followed Mugabe and Mugabe himself are not responsible because they are sweet and naive children who were corrupted by the evil white man. They literally did not do nothing.

What I wanna know is why did the international community shit on Rhodesia but embraced Israel.

Israel actually provided material support to both Rhodesia and South Africa.

The South African/Rhodesian attitude towards Jews is far more relaxed than it is in Europe, even among white supremacists. To them, Jews were fellow white Europeans and the religious difference just isn't that important when you're literally outnumbered 10 to 1 by Africans.

Noted American white supremacist Harold Covington was actually thrown out of Rhodesia for sending death threats to a Jewish congregation.

nigs have no agency

what did the israelis gain from helping SA and rhodesia out?
was it just for the money or was there something more to it?

I believe the Jews and white S.A. jointly developed a nuclear bomb.

Long story short, SA, Rhodesia, and Israel had two key things in common: Surrounded and inhabited by vast amounts of people who hated them, and all being pariah states at the time.

Yes, Israeli military industry was desperate for markets they could reliably sell to (because they wanted to stay financially solvent because no one wanted to sell Israel weapons except the French and then only sometimes), but they sold at generous rates - more than money, Israel wanted friends.

South Africa was one of the 33 states that voted in favor of the UN resolution that led to the creation of Israel and was the seventh to grant it diplomatic recognition. The two countries have had a close relationship ever since. Their military alliance really took off in the 70s because both were plagued with Soviet-backed terrorist groups, the PLO and ANC and both sought to develop nuclear weapons as a means of assuring their continued existence.

TL;DR "Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples."
-1978 South African Yearbook

I imagine Israel extended the courtesy to Rhodesia for similar reasons as South Africa

here, and is PROBABLY correct and I thank him for mentioning it. Israel's nuclear program is still kind of mysterious, but their collaboration did coincide with isolated, besieged SA suddenly unveiling nuclear weapons. It would have been far smarter/safer for Israeli engineers to develop and test them in SA than in Israel, to say nothing of SA's uranium deposits.

>inhabited by dark peoples."
Aren't 50% of Israel's mizrahim?

Any idea whether the U.S. actively tried to stop them (as part of the superpowers' broader anti-nuclear proliferation policy)? Actively helped them develop the bomb? Or simply paid no attention to it?

Why didn't (based) Mugabe have every right to kick the whites out of the country? They were foreign invaders who owned most of the land.
They don't belong in Africa. They never did.
>b-but
The early years of native rule were much better than Rhodesia had been. Education and living standards improved massively and racial tension was at an all time low. Things didn't start going badly until Mugabe (probably) embezzled the War Veterans' Fund and got rid of the Willing Seller, Willing Buyer clause in the land redistribution scheme.

I'm unfortunately not that knowledgeable about this subject, but I'm pretty sure it's a case of one and then the other - SA developed nukes because it was feeling threatened by communist insurgencies in pretty much every bordering country that were steadily making gains with direct funding and training from communist powers, and so that roughly put it on the side of the US (although, as ever, the White House could never publicly endorse or support SA).

What the CIA (and the GRU for that matter) knew of SA's nuclear program and their activities in support or detriment to it will probably remain classified for a long time. What remains true is that neither east nor west was publicly pleased with SA splitting the atom, and nuclear deterrence breathed new life into SA's ability to wield diplomatic influence and resist international pressure. America's policy was at all stages "stop communism, don't look racist, nothing else matters" whereas the Kremlin and Beijing were "create marxist/maoist puppet states wherever possible, exploit anticolonialism to this end." Neither side had much to gain from a South Africa capable of throwing a wrench in BOTH these foreign policies, and that shows in their shared insistence on SA's eventual nuclear disarmament.

Pardon the very long non-answer. What's most important is that no one actually expected SA to get the bomb, or at least publicly did, which probably means they sat back and watched if they knew anything at all.

the situations are hardly comparable

Tbh I see what he's getting at, it isn't about who's responsibility, but about the reality of the situation and the necessary actions to make it all succeed.

I thought Botswana faired better because it's one of the only African nations to have a decent amount of economic freedom?

I've heard stuff before about botswana's economy being (at least partially) run by the former colonists and their descendants but idk how much truth there is to that
AIDS rate aside it seems like an alright place

I have heard that they have the best HIV management programs of any third world country, and the life expectancy of HIV+ botswanans is almost the same as hiv- botswanans.

Looks like Houston (which is a total shithole).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vela_Incident

Botswana was never truly colonized; it was a protectorate and never really integrated into the British Empire. In "Why Nations Fail," the authors claim that's the first reason why it succeeded - colonists being too preoccupied with exploiting wealth and removing it elsewhere.

>the rest of the West
>rest of
Do Israelis unironically consider themselves to be western?

It fared better because it has a shit ton of diamonds, economic freedom, and their president didn't decide to print ALL THE MONEY just because he could.

Nice to know, however that doesn't really explain ethiopias problems.

Weimar weakness and lack of will to press for hard rejection of Versailles when it became obvious it was impossible are responsible for Hitler being allowed to rise to power--you can disagree with the specifics, but is someone espousing that kind of opinion claiming Hitler dindu nuffin'?

No, they're claiming action could've been taken to stop his rise and not taking it was a failure because they've already taken as base principle that stopping their ascent was the most desirable of outcomes.

It's a European colony, the dark skinned native Jews will literally not be allowed into clubs outside tourist districts and are treated in all other respects as second class citizens until one of them blows out a child's brains that happen to be Palestinian, suddenly they're a national hero to be defended.

Zimbabwe is a bad place because it was a soviet puppet ruled by retarded thugs, not because its run by blacks.

>The early years of native rule were much better than Rhodesia had been. Education and living standards improved massively and racial tension-
This is objectively false.

they were all sort of "rogue" nations in the middle of shitholes surrounded by barbarians and who were constantly getting bitched at by the UN for being "boohoo too mean :("

Namibia too.

Because Zimbabwe is now the worlds biggest shithole, despite being the most succesful African country when it was still Rhodesia
Everything after your
>b-but
Is objectively false, btw.

>Harold Covington was actually thrown out of Rhodesia for sending death threats to a Jewish congregation.
To be fair, Harold Covington got kicked out of every American WN movement too for being a shitty libelous loser

if they're not western then what are they?

thank you for that explanation, I have to wholeheartedly agree with your first sentence. SA was basically surrounded by a sea of enemies and having "the bomb" dramatically reduced the chance they would be invaded.
I also want want to add on that SA is the only country to ever have nuclear weapons and then peacefully give them up. De Klerk, I think it was him who gave them up didn't want them to fall into the hands of an unstable government after the end of apartheid.