The Central African Federation Strategy

So media Welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that you and I mean you, my friend, are listening to right now. Unless you're the not the you that I was referring to, in which case I'm not talking to you right now. G away come back later, you know? And you know, if you're gonna come back later, make sure that you're back in time to hear from our guests in this episode today U that's not really a very clean way to go to Becaramos is here Introduce Becar Ramos? Hello. I'm sorry. I don't know. I didn't have a good intro planned out. and I just started talking and let letting the words follow. But yes, Becaramos, welcome to the show. Do you wantan to plug your plugables Better than I did. Yeah. sureure. I am a producer here at IHart, but I also have my own show called Welcome to Elbario, which is a podcast about all things, Puerto Rican history, news, culture. I interview really amazing Puerto Ricans that are redefining what it means to be Puerto Rican all in hopes by the end of every episode you feel a little closer to Boringen no matter where you are in the world. And we have had some amazing guests lately. We literally on Tuesday of I'm like winn is next Tuesday. It'll be chewy day. If you are a fan of B bunny, you're a fan of chewy probably. So tune in. It's going be a great episode The rocks rocks. Cool. And this is my first episode back after I mean, it's not the first episode. you'll hear me It's my first episode. was sick. But You guys on the Reddit Ian's a real person is very much real. We have one episode with our producer Ian instead of Sophie, and I forgot to do a separate introduction, because I was't remind. Yeah. Hayian Johnson is a supervising producer, Cool one media, really great guy. Can't say enough nice things, but that is who was filling in for me and nobody reminded Robert that he should have That separately our producer. Yeah, that was that was the subbreddit. I'm safe and that was Ian Mhm Well done But you know who did Well actually, we're going to talk about people who fucked up today, abbsolutely. We're talking about Becca, what do you know about Rhodesia You know, I'm gonna say not much Not Okaykay. Okaykay. N much. That's good. They've come up a few times in prerevious episodes of our podcast, like Rhodesia is kind of like a specter haunting the white supremacist cause for the last like several decades in the US and abroad. Um, And so we've talked around Rhodesia. We've talked about like how Soldier of Fortune used to try to recruit like white racists in America to fight for the Rhodesian arrmy in Africa. But we haven't talked about Rhodesia directly as like the pure subject of an episode. We talked about that fucking guy who got wrongfully blamed for doing the anthrax attacks in the US who like volunteered the Rhodesian arrmy We've talked about we've talked around Rhodesia a bunch, but this week we're talking about Ian Smith, who was the prrime Minister of Rhodesia for its entire existence is what you might call an independent country, although it's never recognized by the rest of the world as an independent country. The kind of TLDR, before we get into this is that Rhodesia was a state in southern Central Africa that was started as like a colony of the British Empire and declared its own independence illegally from Great Britain in the late twentieth century and fought like a twenty year war against the black majority of the country which was fought by like the white colonists who owned all of the guns. and eventually they failed. and Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. And that's like the long story short version, right? So we're going to talk about how all of that happened this week. Are you excited, Becca Let's get into it. Yeah, you should be. You should be This is an iHart podcast Guaranteed human This is George Sverres and Sam Tagger from Stradio Lab. Let's be real, home comes with a lot of odors. cooking, pets, everyday life. That's where Fabrize comes in. Fabriz helps fight household odors and leaves behind freshness that lasts. And with over thirty cents to choose from, you'll always find one that feels like you. Fabriz. Freshness that fits your life, your space, your style Fabrz is a proud sponsor of the Elton Joh Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the iHart Radio app and everyverywhere podcast are heard. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum Tanning does it better. Beachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations. with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. Rcharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beachbum isn't just tanning, It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you They said the Big Apple had everything. Now, it has more. The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in the Big Apple. Every roll, every shuffle, every spin happens right here. twenty four seven. Only at Resorts World New York City. Experience Blackjack, Bakara, Kraps and Roulette. It's not just a whole new world. It's a world like no other. Resorts World, New York City. Gambling Pone call eight se seven eight Hpen Yire teext Hpen Y four six seven, three six nine must be twenty one or older to gamble standard in Messagerade supply Mornings at my house are impossible. Two kids can't buy their shoes and the sink starts leaking. So I post my tasks on air Tasker. Soon, the sink's fixed, and a tasker installs a robot litter box, my cat hates Go to airtasker. com or download the app. Air Tasker. Get anything done So in the early eighteen eighties, that's where we're going to start our tale because that's kind of where the origins of Rhodesia come from, right? You've got this period of time in which the great powers of Europe are all caught up in what was it became called the sccramble for Africa, right? Near the end of the eighteen eighties kind of All of these different European powers that had gotten rich by setting up colonies all over the world had started to like they'd kind of run into two horrifying realizations. The first was that the map was no longer mostly empty, right? Like the world, we knew what was in the world as a general rule, and we knew like there were no longer blank spots on the map in the European mind. No those had never really been blank spots on the map, but as far as white people were concerned, there used to be a lot of those. And the other was kind of only Africa. We know what's going on in Asia. We know what's going on in the Americas. And in fact, most of those American colonies that we used to have have started kicking us out, right Yeah. Africa would never do that to us. And there's this also this understanding because of the kind of dominant economic understandings of the time, there's this widespread belief that like, well the world, you're not just like making new more of anything. Like there's a finite amount of all the resources we have. And so the countries that want to be great have to steal as much of the rest of the world as they can. And when we're out of the rest of the world to steal ower positions of the great powers will be locked. So there's this real panic, especially among countries like Germany that are like, wait a second, We'll never get a chance to be bigger than the British Empire. And obviously the British Empire is like, wait a second. Other guys are going to try to like swoop in and grab enough Africa that they can get bigger than us. Absolutely the fuck not. start Rushing to try to grab as much of Africa, like every part of Africa that wasn't nailed down in the possession of other Europeans, right? This gets sparked when the Belgians take the Congo, but it goes on for decades. and it winds up causing most of the problems in Africa that we're going to be dealing with in the twieth and twenty first centuries, right Um Oly enough If you look back at like and read how a lot of these imperial thinkers talked about African colonization during the scramble. There's this kind of manic paranoia to them that seems really similar to how like venture capitalists talk about AI today where they believe that like we have we've got a we've got a couple of years to set out who's going to be powerful forever And so if we fuck up and don't get enough Africa, then that's the game plan, obviously, right? I love about the consideration that There were people there were never on their mind, you know? Like it's this concept that it's like we must be the rulers of civilization because we lead civilization as the European majority We're the civilizing power. Yeah And if we don't get enough of Africa, maybe those dastardly Kraouts will get to do, you know more of civilizing than us So Part of the idea here, and again, these are bound up in all these mercantile list attitudes about how the economy works back then. They don't fully graft even how we understand stuff like capitalism today. But part of the idea that was in vogue among people at the time is that land is the only resource that really mattered. And you know all of the free land was running out and that put a ceiling on how wealthy and powerful in a European nation could get In eighteen eighty nine, the Cown granted a royal charter to the British South Africa Company, which allowed it to expropriate land in the vast chunk of Southern Africa that the Brits felt was ours basically and exploit its resources. right? So the crown gives this guy Cecil Rhodes, who's the founder of the BSC. Yes, Cecil. We've done episodes on Cecil Scesssel They give Cecil the founder of the British South African Company, you know, this charter to colonize a bunch of British South Africa, right under the governance of the British South Africary Company. And Rhodes goes in to this area and he signed some treaties with local leaders, including the big local leader, this guy named King Lobenula of the Nbll, right U And the idea of all these treaties is that that way none of what we're doing will look like an invasion and a land grab This is kind of again, the Belgians started this, but the idea is If you go in and you get like treaties from the locals, then you're not taking over. then you're like helping the locals govern, you know this territory with their consent and it doesn't seem as gross. is always a lie. And the lighte of this is made is as Cecil is making these treaties, he's also formed what's called the Pioneer column, which is this giant mercenary army And he just grabs white fighters from all of the white parts of British Africa and is like, hey, were you too late to wind up, you know becoming a rich farmer in South Africa? Well, maybe you can be a rich farmer in Rhodigu. Just pick up a gun and join the pioneer column, right? Like that's the idea here. We're going to clear these locals out and we're going to take land. and I'm going to give anyone who fights for me chunk of land. You know. So he sends this column up The locals get really pissed. There's a war. We've already covered the first Matablle war in our Cecil Rhodes episodes. It's very bloody and it ends in eighteen ninety three with British forces winning a bloody victory because they've got machine guns and stuff. Right That first war buys Rhodes' colonizers about three years ap peiece before another war called the firstirst Chimorengga breaks out in eighteen ninety six. That name came from a warrior who'd led the Moreinga people in a rebellion against the British a few years earlier, and the Chimorengga becomes the Shonas P's term for a revolutionary struggle When we eventually cover Robert Mugabe, that term will be really like meaningful because that's one that he uses a lot. But the first chimereingga is this rebellion of all these peoples in what becomes Rhodesia against Rhodes and his like pioneer settlers. And it starts when a religious leader, a guy named Malimo, convinces a bunch of Nble and Shona people that white settlers in the area who were numbered about four thousand at this point were responsible for the drought that had been hitting for the last couple of like growing cycles And obviously they weren't, but they were responsible for other things that were making the people in the area unhappy. So these folks band together and they carry out a series of attacks on like native police stations, which are a big thing that they because there's not a lot of white people, the white people will find groups of Iigenous people who they considered more trustworthy and they'll make them, you know native police. And you'll get to police this area and we'll give you some money. So the rebels kill wipe out some of these police stations and they start attacking like white settlers on their farms, these like farms full of white families that have taken land from the indigenous people and have started farming there And within the first week of this rebellion, about three hundred white settlers have been killed So this really pisses off the British South African Company. and it provides sort of the justification for them to send real forces into the area. And in very short order, the rebellion is broken, right? The Sona and the Nlle people They don't really have the firepower contrast like any of these sort of pioneer armies, and they get they get wiped out in pretty bloody fashion after this point Um So this is like eighteen ninety six, eighteen ninety seventven that you have this war. And none of the white colonial leaders who are on the ground and what becomes Rhodesia at the time are stupid enough to believe that like just because we beat them in a second war, they're going to be peaceful forever, right? We had fought a war three years previously. There's been a lot of history of colonization in South Africa that involves pretty regular war and violence. So their plan after this eighteen ninety six seven war is let's create a bunch of changes that will make it impossible for the locals to resist en mass ever again, right? We're going to as we set up the governing for what's going to be a colony and then a country Our entire legal system is going to be based around making sure black people can't organize and resist white people, right?s the foundation of Rhodesian political society. As an article in the conversation summarizes, the British South Africa Company introduced commercial agricultural development after discovering that the colony was not rich in gold. Commercial farming was dependent on the expropriation of land from the rural population. So in eighteen ninety eight, it encouraged expropriation for commercial agricultural production of tobacco, maize and corn. It also set up a reserve system which aimed to move and concentrate Chona and Nble populations into so called native reserve lands So they're doing the an America. and this is very consciously, they're kind of looking at what I mean, this is also based on other things the British have done elsewhere, but they're influenced by what the US is doing with reservations, know, of the native people of North America. And that's kind of what Rhodesia starts by doing is we need the best farmland, so we're going to kick people off of it We'll give them farms, but in land that they can't really support their population on. And that'll also allow us to kind of concentrate them in areas where we can control them better, where they can't link up together and make better use of their numbers. So becomes Southern Rhodesia, which is initially a private corporate colony of the British South African Compies, starts up in this period of time. The name Rhodesia starts getting used in eighteen ninety five when they're still fighting these wars, and it's kind of adopted unofficially before it's adopted officially as the name of this colony As Charlton Coussins wrote for a twenty twenty four article in the Journal Historical Research, its purpose was both to line the coffers of Rhodes and his backers in the Cape in London and also outflank the Bers of the Transval Republic So this is also This is both like a way for these white farmers to get rich in an area that hasn't been settled yet Buts it's a way to deal with the fact that this this theth like South Africans are not, they're under like control of the British Empire, but they're not British, right? They likeike they're Ber. And the British don't trust them. And they're like, we're going to have to fight these fuckers at some point. It would be really helpful if we had like a polity, like a colony on their border that we could use as a base, but that we could trust. So that's another part of like they're not just starting Rhodesia in order to take shit from the indigenous people. They're also starting Rhodesia in order to make sure the Boweers don't control too much. right? Yeah. it's both of those things at once. It's Great Britain. they love to colonize. vbe historically. They love to colonize and they also periodically have to create new colonies to deal with the problems created by the colonies they created earlier. Yeah Or wound up in charge of earlier. Um, So the name Rhodesia, again, it starts as kind of a bit of a joke, but it sts because of its fundamental honesty. Given that it borders South Africa and comes to share a white supremacist outlook on government, a lot of people are surprised to hear that initially, Rhodesians and South Africans do not get along at all because Rhodesians are British and South Africans are Boers and they kind of hate each other for a long time In nineteen twenty two, white people ye, classic white people in Africa In nineteen twenty two, white people in Rhodesia have a referendum on whether or not to join South Africa You know, in the early nineteen hundreds, not long after Rhodesia's establishment, you have these brutal wars like this brutal war that the British Empire fights against the Boers in South Africa. You've got this Boer war where they they really experiment with concentration camps in a big way for the British in the first time against these Boer people. and it's this really hideous conflict And so not long after that, After, you know, South Africa has been kind of beaten back into into shape, there's this referendum on like, do we want Hey, Rhodesians? do you guys want to be part of South Africa? And the British are like, absbsolutely not. We're not Boer. Like were we're British people. We're part of Britain. We want to be part of the British Empire. We won't want to be part of South Africa. Like that's not that's not our kind of thing Um And it's interesting because this is The white supremacists, the folks whose primary political goals are white supremacy, want to combine Rhodesia and South America Beacause they see we need to keep all of the white people in this area together so that they can pool their military power. But the Rhodesians initially, they're white supremacist, but they're also British supremacist before anything else. So they just don't w to be they don't want to deal with these like dirty boers. is kind of like a big factor in Rhodesian politics, Is they're a little too racist to be friendly to South Africans until they really need it. whichich is very funny. You have to be super racist to be like, oh, South Africans, N not the right kind of white Sorry guys That is a new love. Like just not white. like they had a petide. Yeah Yeah, and we have our own apartheid from them from the booers. Um So one of these early Rhodesians, these British Rhodesians is a guy named Jock Smith. Joc is originally a Scotsman. He immigrates to Rhodesia in eighteen ninety eight, not long after it becomes a thing. And he settles in a small town called Saluque, where he comes to own and operate a farm in a mine. He's like got a butcher shop, and he's good. He's a good businessman, He's successful He becomes one of the biggest men in town in fairly short order. And part of what makes him successful is he's one of these guys. there's like a gold rush, right? There's mining and farms that people are like rushing to fill. And instead of trying to become a mine owner or a farmer, I mean, he does a little bit of both, but he primarily sells things to miners and farm owners to allow them to like do their jobs And that question is really the smart play. My question is it is Jock man Yeah. the right kind of white for them Yeah, oh yeah. Jack Smith is the British kind of white. Well, he's Scottish, but that's close enough so yeah So J Yeah, Jack is a successful businessman. He invests wisely and he makes a lot of money. He comes to own a business breeding race horses and becomes one of the leading men in the growing white settler community of Rhodesia His young son, Ian Smith, was born in nineteen nineteen, just three years before Rhodesia would vote in that referendum And Ian Smith is This is the guy. He's going to become the political leader of Rhodesia and his life is a very normal one and it was like early years, a very normal for kids in colonial British African possessions in this period His family background is pretty standard for this sort of thing. His mom's family came from some money back in England. and Jock had been, you know, he was the Scotsman who was kind of hungry for success. So he moves to Rhodesia and he makes a lot of money in Rhodesia and he meets other members of his wife's family before she's traveled over there and is like, hey, I'm successful here. Why don't you send your fancy daughter to marry me? and like that way I can kind of marry into a higher status in society and you'll get the money that I've made being successful in this new colony, right? Like that's kind of his background. So from the beginning, his family are like the first generation of like aristocrats in Rhodesian society. And that's the whole reason why you want colonies if you're a country like Great Britain and this time is that It gives something for your hungry young men to do in a way for them to like climb the ladder without up setting the apple cart or pushing anyone out of power back home, right? Like that's a big part of the appeal. And so Colonialism is gonna kind of work perfectly for Ian Smith and his family for his entire early life. Like he is these are some of the people for whom the colonial system is made and they love it as a result. This is the water that Ian Smith grows up wading in. He never knows any other way to be, right? He loves colonialism As those who benefit do as those whose entire life, like they were crafted in a lab to further this kind of thing, basically. Like it's not really weird why he's so loyal to this system. It's everything he's ever known His dad is the founding member of their town's Masonic lodge. His mom runs the local Women's Institute. They both get awarded the MBE, which is like the members of the British Empire, right for their various contributions to civic life in Siluwe and in Rhodesia as a whole. And they see this as, again, like we're creating a new white civilization to civilize clean up this wild, but valuable and untamed land that's populated sparsely by savages. That's how they're talking about this to themselves, right? is like we're the first generation of people who are like making a civilization out of this like wilderness U Ian would later recall his parents teaching them, quote, principles and moral values, the sense of right and wrong to their children His father, who Ian recalled as one of the fairest men I have ever met, repeatedly told his young son, We're entitled to our half of the country and the blacks are entitled to theirs, right And Ian is going to see this as like, and that means that I'm a fair man. I think that white people should have half of Rhodesia and black people should havealf half of Rhodesia. But at the time he's I will say that as insane as people who came into that st. You know what I'm saying? Like they were there. Yeah Like they were there first And also at the time he's born, there's like two hundred something thousand Rhodesians And there's like four million black people in Rhodesia. So he's like, well, we just want equal space for both races. It's like, but that means White people get a lot more Right That's that's not called being fair. that's called being Title definitionally, you know It's entitlement Yeah But that's like that's the big Rhodesian thing is entitlement. this like sense of like we are here We own this in a special way because like we came and stole it very recently. Um So Ian Smith was again, by birth African. He's born in Africa, and he's raised there and he's going to spend his whole life there, but he's not raised to see himself as an African first. People like Ian's parents very much considered themselves citizens and part of the British world. And this idea of the British world is a nebulous concept and it's distant to us today because people don't really talk about that the British world today like they did back then. but this is still the period where the sun never sets on the British emmpire. And so we need to we need to like Think about this concept a little bit because it's very influential to everything that comes later. So I'm going to quote Charlton Coussins again, writing in the journal Historical Research Carl Bridge and Kent Feterwitich made the argument that the British world was a phenomenon of mass migration, where migrants found they could transfer into societies with familiar cultural values. In doing so, these settlers and migrants created a global community based on the commonality of values in which people could enjoy a liberal, pluralistic polity regardless of their location Whiteness was a dominant element, but people of color across the world adapted a British identity out of conviction and necessity. Right? And that's a really important point because these people are anyian as a white supremacist But they're not necessarily, especially not at the start, white nationalists, because that's not the concept of the British world. The British world always includes a lot of non white people Even as citizens, right? Not always as people who are like don't have any legal recognition because there's a lot of like non white people who are like citizens of the British Empire in this period too, whichich again, doesn't mean that it's not white supremacist, it's not racist. it's just not white nationalist in the same sense that we use that word today And so There's both this idea that Oh there's this beauty of anywhere in the world British people are is a little piece of Britain. So you can pick up and move from Scotland to Africa to Myanmar or Burma that they're calling at the time, and you're still a citizen of the British world or India, and you're still in the British world. And that's really cool to a lot of people At the same time, what you don't have as much in all of these other corners. It's always a factor the fact that white people are outnumbered, but there's also in other different parts of the British emmpire, there's more idea or concessions to the idea that other people are parts of the British Empire. In Rhodesia, there's both this understanding we're part of this worldwide thing, but also we're really badly outnumbered here by black people like Tind to one or more by the time Ian comes up. And so there's also this kind of bunker mentality that merges with this sense of the British world in the mind of white Rhodesian people R And so the upside of Rhodesian society for white people is there's this sense of egalitarianism. Everyone who's white is equal, which is not a factor in like England, right? There's a lot of class stratification, whereereas in Rhodesia, it doesn't matter how you're born. if you're a white person, we're all equal because there's not enough of us, right? That's a big poull to a lot of people Why do why do they think Why do they think that it's egalitarianism? likeike what because white people are equal. For white people, it's equal, right? In other words, if you're born a poor white guy and you move to Rhodesia, you don't have to feel ashamed that you're not born into the upper class because members of the aristocracy will treat you with a basic level of respect. they wouldn't because they need you because we all have to band together to hold the t the line Right So that's it's a lot That's part of the appeal to these parts of the British world that aren't really British is I can go there and gain respect as a white British person Uh, but also like I have to do that by holding the line against this greater number of non white people, right? There's this bunker mentality in Rhodesia that's also merged with this sense of the British world, right And that' there's also this idea that like we're building something great. We're like saving the world in a way by creating these c we're civilizing this chunk of the world too. So there's this part of like, I'm not just seeking benefit to myself. I'm helping to like improve humanity at the same time. And that's really appealing to a specific kind of guy that makes the obvious dangers seem tolerable and the inequalities of daily life in Rhodesia make sense, right? The fact that you're viewing it all this way And so by the early twentieth century, Rhodesians have developed a reputation among colonial communities in Africa as being, quote, more British than British And here's what Ian Smith later wrote about that idea That was how we were all brought up and taught to live. When you walked past the Union Jack and it was in the forefront of most buildings of any consequence, you looked at it and admired it. All formal occasions commenced with the national anthem, with everyone standing at attention, and if you moved there would be a restraining hand on your shoulder Right This is intense propaganda. These kids, white kids like Ian are being Well yeah, but they're being raised not just to believe that like, better, they're engaged in this noble heroic, sacred project of civilizing, but also like you're a part of this thing that will protect you from these obvious dangers that you see staring out at you every single day Right? And so that makes young white kids who are deeply, unceasingly loyal to this idea of the British world, right? And this idea of Rhodesia and they're going to fight very hard to maintain these things This is kind of this ideological training is going to make perfectly loyal soldiers to go who are gonna want to go out and push the frontier. And that's how Ian grows up. That's how he describes himself as a child, right? 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TIDe is a proud sponsor of the Elton John Impact Awards, honoring those who have helped shape a more inclusive and compassionate world with their artistry, advocacy, and unwavering commitment to equality. You won't want to miss the Elton John Impact Awards podcast available on june first on the IiHart Radio app and everywhere podcasts are heard. When it comes to looking your best, Beachbum Tanning does it better. Beeachbum delivers advanced sun and spray tanning, luxury skincare, and an elevated salon experience designed around you. It's why so many guests trust Beachbum for flawless color and real confidence. And now Beachbum is expanding wellness services to many locations. with red light therapy and infrared sauna, with more on the way. recharge your body, refresh your skin, reset your day. Beeachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in New York City. Experienced Blackjack Bakara. traraps in Roulette twenty four seven only at Resorts Wor, New York City. Gambling probleblem call eight seven seven eight Hopeen Y or text hopeen Y four six seven, three six nine M must be twenty one or older gam. Standard messagers supply. I want to read a little another quote from Ian Smith. This is later from his autobiography, how he kind of talks about his own ideological makeup as a little kid. This is how he grows up believing the world works. Law and order in your society, discipline at your school. Play the game by your fellow man. You cannot let your team down and in the final analysis, it may even be necessary to die for your cause. Those were the conditions under which you lived, under which as a member of the British Empire, you were privileged to live. Right These are They're very much kind of see themselves as like modern Spartans in a lot of ways, includluding like we've got all these Hots, we've got to keep down, right Yeah It's pathological propaganda And you have to do that if you want to maintain an empire This is part of the machinery of empire is you need white kids like this who grow up surrounded and thus really both dedicated to their fellow white people and also with this kind of just understanding that I have to be willing to fight at all times because I'm surrounded, right Um Otherwise, they're going to take away what's mine. which I, you know took from them or my parents took from them, right? But yeah. so Ian grows up this way. He describes himself as a pretty average child U and my only quibble with his autobiography is the fact that like, We don't get a lot about his early childhood. He opens his autobiography with two full pages talking about how badass and amazing his parents were, like listing all of the awards his mummy and daddy got, all of the clubs that they started, all of the cool things that they did. He doesn't talk anything about his own childhood. There's nothing in here about his early life. The first three pages are almost exclusively about his mom and dad. and all he says about his childhood is that it was pretty average and he did well in math and science as opposed to the arts and classics. He doesn't talk at all about his own youth. He's only interested in what his parents did. and I kind of read from that, this is a kid who grows up worsihiping his parents right? And kind of through them worshipping the British Empire. But he doesn't see anything as important about himself as a child because he is all he's ever doing is thinking about how amazing his mom and dad were and now he has to live up to their example That's kindind of what I catch at least, my analysis of his work. Um He is not really gonna talk at all about his own childhood until he starts playing sports in high school. And then we have pages about how goody is at rugby and how goody is at all these that I'm not gonna to quote for you. You don't need to hear this old dead racist talk about how goody was at sports in high school But it is noteworthy that probably overcompensating. Most of you are, you know who you are. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm sure he was good in fucking colonial sports in his class of like ten other white kids, right? It's also not all to be the We don't know in that situation. Yeah, exactly. Sports looked very different then. We really have his word for it, and you know what? Yeah? I don't trust Ian Smith But you know, I bet it is easier to be like the best kid in your school at basketball when your school is like twelve other rich white kids Like off course. Yeah. Robert. you would be the LeBron James of that high school. I would be. I would have been the LeBron. Yes. taller than most of these Rhodesian kids were. Yeah. So And yeah,'s this is though one of the things I noticed because I thought it was weird at first going through Ian Smith's autobiographography and being like he only talks about the sports he played as a kid. We don't get anything about like we don't he doesn't give us any specific details of like things his dad told him. early experiences in childhood that made him think about the way his society was ordered. The first time he saw a black person working in a field. We don't get any of that from Ian Smith. do get is in talking about sports, and you see that in a lot of memoirs by white Rhodesians. When they'll talk about like how before Rhodesia fell, before those you know, the natives took it over and made Zimbabwe and destroyed the wonderful country we had, they'll talk about what life was like. and nearly all of those anecdotes are just about like sporting. They'll just talk about polo and That's like every Rhodesian account of life in Rhodesia is like polo and hunting and being served by servants. And I found that kind of weird until I read a piece in City Journal by a guy named Theodore Dalrmple, who moved to Rhodesia in like the sixties or seventies and worked as a doctor there, right? And he's working there as a doctor while the country is falling apart. So he's a foreigner who comes there to work as like an emergency medicine basically, and he gets to see the country as an outsider And so I read his recollections and there's a piece in there that gave me pause because I think it made some of Smith's stuff make a little more sense to me. And so this is Dalrmple talking about being a doctor in Rhodesia We worked hard, I have never worked harder. The luxury of our life was this, that once our work was done, we never had to perform a single chore for ourselves. The rest of our time and our most beautiful surroundings was given over to friendship, sports, study, hunting, whatever we wished. Of course, our leisure rested upon a pyramid of startling inequality and social difference. The staff who freed us of life's little inconveniences lived an existence that was opaque to us though they had quarters only a few yards from where we lived. Their hopes, wishes, fears, and aspirations were not ours. Their beliefs, tastes, and customs were alien to us Does that make sense, what Theodore is saying? in terms of like making the fact that all of these Rhodesians only write about playing sports and hunting makeakes sense that their life isn't anything else. They don't have The way he writes it though is so like dissonant of the experience they're putting onto the black people that are native to that land where it's like They are doing this serervice to us to free us of the burden of work But then also being like, theirir dreams are different than ours and it's like, well, you'veb of their dreams because they have to do all the hard work for you. Dal Remple is saying that because because he's not a Rhodesian. He's saying like, because he calls it startling inequality, right? And he's saying that like I recognize because I had to recognize that we only didn't have to deal with chores because all of these people were like forced to work for us and we didn't like we had I had no idea what they wanted because they're not even allowed to talk to us. I think that's what Theodore saying Yes. I guess I was saying the dissonance was coming from his wording of the use of opaagque, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think it' it's deliberately made opaque because they we're not supposed to be talking. And that's a thing Dal Rple recognizes, but Ian Smith and guys like him never do. they never wonder, was the reason why your entire life until the war started was just like hunting and playing because you never had to be a real person. All you had to do was be on vacation most of your life while other people worked for you, right? That's the white Rhodesian lifestyle. When people talk about the glorious Rhodesian lifestyle It's having other people do all the work for them. It's the same as the Confederacy, right? When people when you get this like lost cause narrative about like, oh, but things were so different then. peopleople were so much nicer and more genteel in the old South, It's like, well, becauseuse they didn't have to do stuff because other people did all the work. The way that you were not to be bravo pilled, but the way you were reading that text was very southern chararm esque Yes, it is is it is very much that where these very rich old socialites refuse to acknowledge the land that they're on. And then also speaking in that way where're like I love art and culture and these things. It's like on the backs of the slave labor that is this land Yeah, are you really cultured if you're able to like fucking learn to play the piano because you never have to cook your own food or whate Exactly If that's the reason you're cultured is that really cultured? O are you just a blood drenched demagogue? Right? You know? Exactly. So yeah, and that that's the thing because I think Dalrmple is kind of like recognizing that as an outsider. and that's the thing Ian is never going to examine or understand about his own life, right? So he gets sent away to boarding school for his secondary education' awwards for rugby and the hundred yard dash. because again, his parents aren't Rhodesian parents don't raise their kids They like occasionally give them lectures and then like their black nannies raise them until it's time for them to go to boarding school, right? Like that's how a rich Rhodesian family raises their children Um His only detailed recollections of his childhood involve sporting events. He goes to college in South Africa because Rhodesia didn't really have a college yet and he gets to work on a degree in commerce. and things are going well for Ian Smith, but he's not going to get a chance to finish that degree right away. Because near the end of nineteen thirty nine, World War two rears its ugly head and Great Britain is going to be one of the first powers to get involved Now, we don't have Ian describing his own reaction to the outbreak of hostilities. We don't have him talking about like how he felt about any of this But we do have him writing about how many of the how many of the young men in his hometown were eager to fight just to have something to do, right? There's like nothing to do in Rhodesia. It's really boring because I don't have to work. O people do all the work. But like all I have to do like life is just kind of boring and war seems more exciting than like playing sports back at home, right? I get a chance to fulfill my patriotic duty. and I've been raised to feel like I'm a member of this great society that's now being threatened and at war. And I want a chance to fight for it too. That's another thing part of what's going on for Ian Because he's a special boy, he's not gonna to join the regular military. He's like the child of special parents, and he feels like he deserves the sexiest job in the military at the time which is fighter pilot So in the winter of nineteen forty, he travels to the Rhodesian capital, Salisbury to meet with a contact at the Air Force whose name that he had been given is all he writes is that like I was given this guy's name. and I went to meet with him and he got me like a spot in the Air Force training accademy I think he has like a family or a school connection, right? This is a rich guy sort of thing. likeike he gets the job everyone wants in the military because he comes from a family who's something.. But he gets it. He drops out of college to fight. This does not seem to have bothered him Full of patriotic fervor, he was posted to a training wing in Bolaio, alongside British and Australian cadet groups. The Rhodesians are the only ones without a uniform because there'd been no need for a Rhodesian Air Corps before the war, right? So they don't even have like an outfit to wear at first. They're so like alien to the idea of having an independent military of any kind becausecause they're just British, right? So after training, he joins the RAF and he gets posted to Egypt and then Lebanon, where he grows comfortable flying The war came for him in a belated fashion, but when it did, it hit hard. Over the course of World War two, he was shot down twice in combat The first time in North Africa and he was badly injured in this first crash. Incredible He survived twice being shot twice. twice twice Real Harrison Ford levels of luck here. Yes. As a writer for the AP noted in their eventual obituary of Smith, plastic surgery to fix scars from the first crash paralyzed the right side of his face, giving him a sinister, expressionless appearance. So for the rest of his life, he's this man who can only glare, right? That's like a big part of his like, especially when he gets into politics, he's really like scary to a lot of people Beuse he can't smile or even move his face at all. It's just like locked in this stony position because he got horribly injured in the plane crash U It's a very like boond villain kind of origin story So He gets better from this first crash and he gets posted to Europe where he gets shot down a second time, this time over Italy. And he winds up, He has like a very cool World War two. He meets and embeds with a group of Italian partisans after he gets shot down and he like fights with them until he gets like rescued and Italy is conquered. on the whole, great World War two story, right? You know, he does his bit No real notes there, and he returns home to Africa after the war and finishes his degree at Rhodes University. So he comes home a war hero. He gets elected when he's back at college in South Africa, spokesman for veteran students. So there's like a veteran students group of the kids did to go away to fight World War two, and he becomes their spokesman at Rhodes University And this is going to be like his first experience in politics. L he has to get basically elected to this job. And so he realizes from that like I kind of like campaigning. I kind of like politics I think that might be the thing for me. You know, my family's rich I just became like a war hero. I have this kind of gravitas from that. Maybe that's what I'm gonna do the rest ofing Roy from succession. He's like Ian Smith was interested in politics at an early age. Yeah. What experience you have? My family's rich. That sound jobs for me. And I got shut down. Yeah. He's like, I fresed a couple oflaines That's And and like low key I looked them up, they kind of look the same So once he graduates, he goes back to Rhodesia and he does what all affluent white men are supposed to do in Rhodesia. He buys land and he establishes himself as a farmer In Ian's case, this initially meant tobacco. Most farming in Rhodesia was done by black people. At its peak, the country had six thousand two hundred white farming families who employed some three hundred fifty thousand B black laborers to work their fields. R? So that should tell you like how much work is being done by these white farmers who always brag about being great farmers and how productive they were, how much better the country did They're not farming. Each farming family on average had fifty to sixty black laborers, right? They're not doing real farming work. They're telling people what to do while they wear white linen suits and drink jules, you know? Absolutely not. Yeah I cannot exaggerate the degree to which Rhodesians are not farmers. White Rhodesians are not farmers Um Now, in his autobiography, Ian doesn't discuss black workers on his farm at all. He doesn't acknowledge that they exist. He talks about his farm and how well his farm does. But we don't get any discussion about the people who like lived there. He makes in his whole autobiography. I only found one brief reference to the people who lived on his land before he bought it. And this is that reference Our land had been utilized over decades as a squatting camp for workers on the main section of Aberfoyil Ranch. There had been indiscriminate plowing without the necessary measures for soil protection and uncontrolled woodcutting, not only for fuel, but even more devastating for building houses under the traditional Poland Daga system. And that's like his issue is Oh, these squatters who were like workers for this nearby farm have been plowing the land and ripping up trees to build their houses and they build their houses like the wrong way. So they waste all these beautiful trees and they're damaging the soil. And he writes about them like they're squatters. They're these workers who are like wrongly on my land damaging it as opposed to like But like before the Aberfoil ranch, they just lived there and they probably got kicked off of wherever their village was because a white guy wanted a ranch, which is why they had to move over to your land before you owned it, which is the only place that they could live. And then you moved in and you're like, oh, these guys are bad for the They're bad for the environment. They're bad for the climate. Look at how bad they are for the trees. They're destroying trees. Better kick them off, right? They're not thinking at all about the fact that these are people who live here. They're thinking about them as like, well, I own this beautiful land and these people are making it ugly They're bad for the land, right? The people who live here That's the Rhodesian attitude in a nutshell Yeah, he sucks. Yeah. So that's pretty cool. he does he doesn't like acknowledge, you know, The fact that the people needed houses or needed to live there. and he doesn't mention what happens to these people who had relied on his land for housing materials after he kicks them off. He just moves from talking about forcing them off to expressing glee that there were still some areas in sound natural condition. And the important fact was we were able to arrest further deterioration. So again doesn't talk about How did you make these people leave? What happened to them later? Where did they go? Did they ever find housing again? He's just like, don't worry. We were able to stop them from damaging the land further. And then I was able to fix it And then comes this very telling line All land requires dedicated people who believe in that well known maxim that we do not inherit our land from our fathers borrow it from our great grandchildren, and each generation is honor bound to pass it on in better condition than it was when it was received. I didn't inherit. We didn't steal our land from the people who owned it before. I'm borrowing it from my kids And and those people never didn get it back. No. Absolutely not, absolutely not. We have to pass off the land in better condition, which means with less black people on it than it was when we received it, right You can both tell how like white supremacists today look at and read Ian Smith and are like, what a good man. a decent, truly a conservationist. He cared about the environment, you know? as opposed to being like, but what about like the people But hey like there were people there Hey, like this wasn't just like a farm forever for one white guy. likeike this was like a community and he forced him off so that he could have his nice farm. Maybe that's not actually beinging good for the environment. Maybe he's just a tyrant Um And a lot of Rhodesia works this way, right? You can find all manner of lovely Rhodesian childhood memoirs by white people, all of which act as if white people just kind of stumbled upon Rhodesia when it was empty and started civilizing it, right? That's the official attitude as to how they got their land. There's a good example of this in the website, Window O Rhodesia, which was written by a former Rhodesian citizen named Colin Wire. It's like an old fucking geocities looking website, but it's still up today. And so you can get an idea of how Rhodesians justified the state of affairs to themselves. H here's a quote from Colin's memoir It must be remembered that the Whites really did settle in a country which was all but empty, probably no more than about half a million people in a country three times the size of England To get that in perspective, the city of Oxford has a population of about one hundred sixty thousand people. In eighteen ninety, the native population of what became Rhodesia was only about three times this. But as Rhodesia is three times the size of England, a fair impression may be gained by imagining the people of Oxford is the only people living in the whole of England, but living in small, scattered communities with large areas uninhabited This was the situation whites found in Rhodesia. First off, it wasn't. They fought different wars just to clear off the people who had been there before they started farming. And second Half a million people is twice as many Rhodesians as existed when Ian Smith was born That's what they'reing is like the inconsequential number of black people that were living here when we founded it, right? is twice as many as the number of white people who existed at the height of Rhodesia. Also just because there weren't enough people in your mind, What makes you think having more people on that land is good empty environment. It' empty.' empty It was empty Yeah. In fact, it seems like Rhodesians are the worst for the land because by the time like if there's only half a million people living there when Rhodesians start fluttering it and killing them, and then by the time the seventies come around, there's three hundred thousand Rhodesians and four and a half or six million black people living in Rhodesia, then that means that like the land has gotten more crowded under the Rhodesian state. Exactly. R. If that's what you're judging it by U So yeah, there's a lot that's flawed about this attitude. Speaking of things that are flawed H My sponsors aren't They've never made a mistake ver exxcept for sponsoring me, I guess. Fuck, I don't know. This is Jenny Garth from I Choose Me with Jenny Garth. You know, history is full of surprising little details. And laundry? Turns out, it's got its own fascinating story too Because not all detergents are created equal. Tide liquid laundry detergent isn't just clean, it's boosted clean for cleaner, whiter, brighter, and fresher results compared to tide simply. And those stubborn stains that always seem to show up at the worst times, Tide tackles one hundred percent common stains for every load, every time. Now if Grease is your nemesis, think food spills, cooking splatters, Tide's got ten times Grease fighting ingredients compared to bargain brands And it works in a machine, in any water condition, on all your machine washable fabrics. 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Beachbum isn't just tanning. It's full spectrum wellness. Visit beachbum dot com to find a location near you. The wait is over. Live table games have arrived in New York City. Experience Blackjack Balara, traraps in Roulette twenty four seven L at R resorts World New York City Gambing problem call eight seven sevenenty eight Hopeen Y or teex Hopeen Y or four six seven three six nine. M must be twenty one or older to gamble standard Magry supplies. It's ninety five degrees and your air conditioner suddenly starts making a very weird noise. That's when you post your task on Air Tasker. Find local help for repairs, yardwork, errands, and more without losing your cool. Go to airtasker dot com or download the app Air Tasker, get anything done And we're back. Okay U yeah, we're talking about Rhodesia. So And againain, this attitude that like it was empty when we got there, Africans fought constantly against the expansion of company territory from the earliest days. They never just ceded this land. It was never empty. And as the territory grew more populated, it always had way more black people than white people who always enjoyed a very different set of rights.ed because white Rhodesians needed more poor black workers. That's another important point is when Rhodesians started colonizing this area, they deliberately set up their legal system to bring in more poor black people because they needed them to do work they didn't want to do. As one British South Africa company report concluded, cheap and abundant native labor also had to be provided to attract settlers from kinder environments. And this meant creating artificial inducement to the Africans to leave their own farming on an already even larger scale than was necessary to provide labor for the mines That's an official company document about the founding of Rhodesia saying that we had to make it untenable for people to keep living on their own farms so that they would work ours and our minds. We had to ruin the lives of a huge number of black people so that they would become impoverished and have no choice but to work for us That was a conscious part of creating Rhodesia. To ensure that white people had their labor supply, in eighteen ninety six, the company imposed a native hut tax on black people living in the area. And this is basically if you're not in a white person house, you have to pay a tax. on your hut. That's what they that's what it's called. And that means that like You have to work evenven if you're like making enough food in your small farm to feed yourself, It's no longer enough because now you've got this tax to pay. So you have to go get a job somewhere, which means you don't have time to farm to feed your family, which means your family's going to have to move with you and become impoverished and spend the rest of their lives for generations working for white people because you've stolen their ability to support themselves from them, right? That's how the Rhodesian state is constructed In nineteen oh two, this there's a pass law that gets added. So in ninet eighteen ninety six, black people start having to pay this tax for their houses. And in nineteen oh two, they have to start carrying around a pass. And this restricts them to only living in certain areas of the country. And the reason for this pass law is, then you can tell people if we know, oh, need we need more workers in this region And there's too many of them, too many black people down here where we don't need them We can make it illegal for them to live where they've been living. So they have to move where they have no support and no community and work in order to avoid starving for white people in an area where we need more of them. That's why the path system comes into effect. It's to destroy and break up communities and create artificially a labor force who have no ability to resist or agitate for better conditions. The pAast system ensures that workers have no leverage. They can't even vote with their feet and leave to a different part of the country to get a better job somewhere. right? This is slavery in all but name. That's the system that Rhodesia builds up over the years with all of these different laws. In nineteen oh four, the taxes increased to about a pound a sterling per native home Since workers made about four to twelve pounds a year, this was like a thirty percent income tax that you're paying just for the home you already own A legal study published by the International Commission of Jurists in nineteen seventy six summarizes how the Rhodesian system developed from here From these early policies favoring land expropriation, the creation of a manual labor force grew the vast network of contemporary legislation, which is in force in southern Rhodesia. Its primary purpose is to formalize and maintain a division between the races, a division which largely dictates the range of jobs open to a man, the education his children will receive, the wages he is paid, where he can live how he may behave to his fellows and to members of another race, and what civil and political freedoms he may be permitted to enjoy So when we talk about Why are there so many more people in this area by the time of the seventies, right? Why are there more than half a million people living here? And why are like the entire black population so impoverished? It's because the legal system was created to make them slaves. That's the system the white people are the only ones voting in Rhodesia created, right? Um And the British government largely leaves Rhodesian voters to figure out their own shit, right? They are generally given complete control over their own internal affairs by the British Empire. In nineteen twenty two, Rhodesia had become an official colony, but British law gave it a unique disposition. It's a self governing colony, which they don't really grant anyone else, right Rhodesia has this unique position because they're more British than the British From this point on, the governor of the colony is referred to as the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, and while England retained the power to veto any law proposed by the Rhodesian Parliament, she never acted on this It was generally understood for most of the pre and immediately post war period that the Rhodesian parliament would ask British Parliament basically before we pass they passed any laws governing their African subjects, right? The British Gvernment doesn't want to get embarrassed by like Rhodesia putting out any laws that sound too much like the apartheid laws South Africa has. So when they want to push through a new law to govern their African subjects, they have to get approval of the Commonwealth seecretary first, which is why these laws are never framed as, oh, black people don't have this right. It's more framed as, no, no, there's tax on HUutts they They're less environmentally friendly, the kind of houses the natives use. That's why there's tackax on them. And oh, we have this past system to make sure that they're not like becoming, you know just lazy or homeless or like filling up the streets in some area. That's why we have the passast system. It's not meant to limit what they can do. And that's how all of these laws are kind of justified and stopped from sounding like embarrassingly racist to the mother government U Yeah question it's How so they think they have this like illusion of autonomy, but yet They're crying back to Daddy Britton on everything Is that kind of No they have to get like that's the deal is the crown won' stop them from governing their own society. But they have to ask like, hey, we've we've got this rule that's kind of racist How should we reframe it so it doesn't cause bad PR for you guys They don't want the British government in London doesn't want to hear Rhodesia passed a law saying that black people can't be out at the same time as white people. So instead, they're like, what if we pass this law saying that like there's a passast system that determines where you're allowed to work you know, based on criminal problems that we've had. And like then the crown will be like, okay, that's different enough. That doesn't sound racist. You guys can do that, right? That's why they're referring back London is happy to let Rhodesia do what they want to do, but doesn't want to deal with the blowback of getting yelled at by the international community for having a white supremacist slave state as part of the Commonwealth, right? That's what's happening here So we'll help you be racist, but like we're not with you. We're not with you and you gott to like walk it past us, right? You gott to let us like pencil in like, no, no, no, we got to change some wording. We don't want to get in trouble over this, right They're they're fucking wordsmithing their racism. Oh yeah, ye. like that's a tale of all this time, right? Yeah. I mean, think about everywhere. Yeah. It's especially British racism Yeah And there's this There's this expectation in Rhodesia that because the crown has given us everything we've wanted, eventually we'll be allowed to get our full independence and we'll gain dominion status, right? And so there's this understanding by white Rhodesians that Britain is going to let us become an independent country and call us a dominion at some point, while still having minority rule. So we will never have to be a full democracy. Dominion status is what Canada had. I mean, technically it's still a dominion, right? But like a dominion in the Commonwealth is this thing where you're basically your own country, but the queen is still your sovereign yadda, yada, Like there's some stuff like that Rhodesians think they're going to get that and they're not going to have to give black people to vote R? That is the understanding of white Rhodesians coming into like the sixties is because we're so special, once we're ready, Great Britain will make us a dominion and we won't have to give up any of our political power Right That's the understanding that white Rhodesians have is that like, as long as we don't embarrass mom and dad, one day we'll get to be an independent Western country and we'll never have to give up everything we've taken. Eyverybody, Robert here, I did want to make it really clear, and this doesn't really change much of what I've said. Technically there was like