Rusere Shoniwa has written a detailed, extensively sourced multi-part rebuttal of this article. Having read it carefully, I think he's closer to the truth than I was.
My article omits the foundational history of how Rhodesia was established — the fraudulent concessions, the military conquest, the land seizure, the 90 years of legislation designed to keep the indigenous majority excluded from land, education, income, and political participation. That omission isn't a minor gap. It's the central issue, and without it the article presents a fundamentally incomplete picture.
The post-independence collapse of Zimbabwe remains factually accurate and genuinely catastrophic. But that collapse doesn't retroactively justify the system that preceded it, and I was wrong to frame it as though it did.
I'm happy to have my mind changed by better evidence. Shoniwa brought better evidence.
re: "The analogy reflects the content's central argument that functional, if imperfect, governance was dismantled through idealistic demands for immediate change, without sufficient appreciation for the practical challenges of transition or the potential consequences of rapid disruption to established systems."
I agree.
also, this exact same tactic has been applied to the greenwashing scam of "upgrading" the power grid systems with solar and wind.
ripping out working if imperfect infrastructure (coal, gas, even hydro) before installing a mostly hypothetical alternate system which lacks the redundancy and flexibility needed for an always-on grid.
"oh, we'll develop and build working safe energy storage and buffering systems as we go."
still rebuilding the gutted plane as it glides off the cliff and we will for sure have it all working before hitting the ground.
"Rhodesia, a self-governing dominion that, by the mid-20th century, boasted Africa’s second-highest living standards for its black population" . According to the white Colonosits. Why not mention how blacks where pushed out of all the fertile and productive lands into harsh "Native Reserves"?? Why not mention how black Natives where not allowed to start businesses in key sectors, such as mining, banking and finance? Why not mention that Black Natives needed written permission to access certain parts of Salisbury? Why not mention the livestock raids (Thomas Miekles comes to mind)?? Why not mention the two-tier education system?? Why not mention the extortionate "Hut Tax"?? Why not mention Rhodesian Police Brutality torwards natives??? A quick google search will outline all these things but for some reason you are trying to make it seem as if ungrateful Blacks were living in a paradise and simply decided to wake up and overthrow their benevolent white Masters. Rhodesia was great if you were White. Not so much if you were black.
Even in the 90s, I remember the scathing commentary from the BBC to a then much more recognizably 'leftist' Guardian joining in on the mantra "black man can't farm", without a mention of sanctions, lack of access to capital & machinery etc. The lady doth complain rather excessively, forgive me Shakespeare, and the shrill manner of their complaint was all to transparent: The UK ruling class breathing down their journo lackeys' necks. No justice on stolen land!
Two points I would push back on that taint an otherwise valuable history lesson:
1. “Barbarous land with no written language”…..nation-building now, or then, is usually justified in terms of a superior civilization gifting its blessings to a (in some degree) “lesser” folk…..think “white man’s burden”. I don’t know the details of white settlement in Rhodesia, but we don’t need to distort the details of a project’s genesis to fit an overall positive narrative of the outcome. I’m American, and I can, and do, freely acknowledge the multiple atrocities that were part of its founding, the expropriation of tribal lands, the conscious decimation of indigenous populations and cultures AND also acknowledge that, in the present day, warts and all, American probably represents the most free society in the planet with the best shot at upward mobility for people all over the world.
2. The point about voting rights being based on some combination of income and property….well, income and property based privileges do not a meritocracy make. Income and property *may* be indicative of hard work, good character and so on, but more often than not, whether in Africa or America or elsewhere, whether now or then, they point to privilege, connections, or the use of brute force. There is definitely no correlation between wealth and honesty or integrity or intelligence. Wealth is, well, just wealth, acquired in myriad ways.
The 92% (!!) portion of fertile lands in modern South Africa did not get into their owners' white hands by MERIT, unless you have a particularly cynical or sordid taste. As Public Enemy had it: No jusice on stolen land
This is the first time I'm finding myself strongly disagreeing with material presented here. The settlers left because they had the lands they "discovered" (expropriated from common lands, cf sahel conflict herders versus farmers) taken away from them. The economic collapse was a result of a severe sanctions regime driven primarily by the British mini lords and lardesses who ruled the fiefdom by virtue of above stolen property. No justice on stolen land - from Palestine to SA
This is the colonizers same old justification story. Bottom line, they were not invited in and given the land, they took it and imposed their own values. No matter how you spin it that is theft. You cannot steal land and then claim moral credit for managing it “better.” You cannot dispossess people and then compare their post-dispossession condition to some hypothetical worse outcome. Better living standards or “progress” is meaningless if you ignore who imposed the borders and who had no choice in them. As indigenous Lakota John Trudell said about the same colonizer pattern in what became North America, "We didn't cross borders, borders crossed us."
This well laid out detail of a successful country in Africa is juxtaposed with the fact that most Americans think Africa is a country not hundreds of tribes, cultures and religions. This ignorance feeds the myriad disastrous results in post colonial countries. As Alexander Mercouris of the Duran often says: “just saying “
A similar 'resettlement' (see. UN Migration Compact) take down appears to be incrementally playing out in New Zealand augmented by the globalist technofascist dystopian implementation of the Omniwar (https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/interview-with-david-a-hughes) against the citizenry. The self-described "indigenous" inhabitants oddly and inconsistently claim arrival on canoes, while apparently displacing and brutally erasing those people that lived in the land before them.
Rusere Shoniwa has written a detailed, extensively sourced multi-part rebuttal of this article. Having read it carefully, I think he's closer to the truth than I was.
My article omits the foundational history of how Rhodesia was established — the fraudulent concessions, the military conquest, the land seizure, the 90 years of legislation designed to keep the indigenous majority excluded from land, education, income, and political participation. That omission isn't a minor gap. It's the central issue, and without it the article presents a fundamentally incomplete picture.
The post-independence collapse of Zimbabwe remains factually accurate and genuinely catastrophic. But that collapse doesn't retroactively justify the system that preceded it, and I was wrong to frame it as though it did.
I'm happy to have my mind changed by better evidence. Shoniwa brought better evidence.
His series begins here:
https://plagueonbothhouses.substack.com/p/the-rhodesian-dog-whistle-the-introduction
re: "The analogy reflects the content's central argument that functional, if imperfect, governance was dismantled through idealistic demands for immediate change, without sufficient appreciation for the practical challenges of transition or the potential consequences of rapid disruption to established systems."
I agree.
also, this exact same tactic has been applied to the greenwashing scam of "upgrading" the power grid systems with solar and wind.
ripping out working if imperfect infrastructure (coal, gas, even hydro) before installing a mostly hypothetical alternate system which lacks the redundancy and flexibility needed for an always-on grid.
"oh, we'll develop and build working safe energy storage and buffering systems as we go."
still rebuilding the gutted plane as it glides off the cliff and we will for sure have it all working before hitting the ground.
"Rhodesia, a self-governing dominion that, by the mid-20th century, boasted Africa’s second-highest living standards for its black population" . According to the white Colonosits. Why not mention how blacks where pushed out of all the fertile and productive lands into harsh "Native Reserves"?? Why not mention how black Natives where not allowed to start businesses in key sectors, such as mining, banking and finance? Why not mention that Black Natives needed written permission to access certain parts of Salisbury? Why not mention the livestock raids (Thomas Miekles comes to mind)?? Why not mention the two-tier education system?? Why not mention the extortionate "Hut Tax"?? Why not mention Rhodesian Police Brutality torwards natives??? A quick google search will outline all these things but for some reason you are trying to make it seem as if ungrateful Blacks were living in a paradise and simply decided to wake up and overthrow their benevolent white Masters. Rhodesia was great if you were White. Not so much if you were black.
Even in the 90s, I remember the scathing commentary from the BBC to a then much more recognizably 'leftist' Guardian joining in on the mantra "black man can't farm", without a mention of sanctions, lack of access to capital & machinery etc. The lady doth complain rather excessively, forgive me Shakespeare, and the shrill manner of their complaint was all to transparent: The UK ruling class breathing down their journo lackeys' necks. No justice on stolen land!
Two points I would push back on that taint an otherwise valuable history lesson:
1. “Barbarous land with no written language”…..nation-building now, or then, is usually justified in terms of a superior civilization gifting its blessings to a (in some degree) “lesser” folk…..think “white man’s burden”. I don’t know the details of white settlement in Rhodesia, but we don’t need to distort the details of a project’s genesis to fit an overall positive narrative of the outcome. I’m American, and I can, and do, freely acknowledge the multiple atrocities that were part of its founding, the expropriation of tribal lands, the conscious decimation of indigenous populations and cultures AND also acknowledge that, in the present day, warts and all, American probably represents the most free society in the planet with the best shot at upward mobility for people all over the world.
2. The point about voting rights being based on some combination of income and property….well, income and property based privileges do not a meritocracy make. Income and property *may* be indicative of hard work, good character and so on, but more often than not, whether in Africa or America or elsewhere, whether now or then, they point to privilege, connections, or the use of brute force. There is definitely no correlation between wealth and honesty or integrity or intelligence. Wealth is, well, just wealth, acquired in myriad ways.
The 92% (!!) portion of fertile lands in modern South Africa did not get into their owners' white hands by MERIT, unless you have a particularly cynical or sordid taste. As Public Enemy had it: No jusice on stolen land
Nope ....
https://plagueonbothhouses.substack.com/p/the-rhodesian-dog-whistle-the-introduction
This is the first time I'm finding myself strongly disagreeing with material presented here. The settlers left because they had the lands they "discovered" (expropriated from common lands, cf sahel conflict herders versus farmers) taken away from them. The economic collapse was a result of a severe sanctions regime driven primarily by the British mini lords and lardesses who ruled the fiefdom by virtue of above stolen property. No justice on stolen land - from Palestine to SA
This is the colonizers same old justification story. Bottom line, they were not invited in and given the land, they took it and imposed their own values. No matter how you spin it that is theft. You cannot steal land and then claim moral credit for managing it “better.” You cannot dispossess people and then compare their post-dispossession condition to some hypothetical worse outcome. Better living standards or “progress” is meaningless if you ignore who imposed the borders and who had no choice in them. As indigenous Lakota John Trudell said about the same colonizer pattern in what became North America, "We didn't cross borders, borders crossed us."
This well laid out detail of a successful country in Africa is juxtaposed with the fact that most Americans think Africa is a country not hundreds of tribes, cultures and religions. This ignorance feeds the myriad disastrous results in post colonial countries. As Alexander Mercouris of the Duran often says: “just saying “
A similar 'resettlement' (see. UN Migration Compact) take down appears to be incrementally playing out in New Zealand augmented by the globalist technofascist dystopian implementation of the Omniwar (https://unbekoming.substack.com/p/interview-with-david-a-hughes) against the citizenry. The self-described "indigenous" inhabitants oddly and inconsistently claim arrival on canoes, while apparently displacing and brutally erasing those people that lived in the land before them.
Youtube says Rhodesia Myth video unavailable.
Doesn’t fit the narrative. Perhaps the author had the good sense to upload it to Rumble &.or Bitchute?
Lol.