Talk:Rhodesia
|
|
In 1970 Rhodesia declared itself a republic. Until then they had been a sort of rebel Dominion, nominally loyal to Queen Elizabeth II but in rebellion against the British government. The UDI ended with the words God Save the Queen. Ties were gradually eroded. In 1968 decimal currency was introduced, replacing the Rhodesian pound, formerly at par with the pound sterling. In 1969 there was a crisis when the Rhodesian government exercised its sovereignty by executing some black criminals. They has been sentenced to death earlier, while the country was still a colony (and when the death penalty was still the norm). The Queen issued a pardon, but the Rhodesian Front government of Ian Smith went ahead and executed them. As a result the British Governor, Sir Vickery Gibbs, left the country. He had been holed up in his official residence, refusing to legitimise the rebel state, but unable to oppose it. The Smith government appointed Clifford Dupont as officer administering the government, the normal title for an acting governor in the absence of a regularly appointed Governor. Gibbs had already granted the Prime Minister authority to declare a state of emergency and rule by decree. Also in 1969 most European countries withdrew their consuls from Rhodesia, leaving only Portugal, South Africa and the United States with a diplomatic post. The guerilla war increased in the 1970s, especially after 1974 when Portugal began to withdraw from her overseas territories. Rhodesia became the next front-line state and Mugabe's ZANU operated from bases in Mozambique, former Portugese East Africa. The Internal Settlement was signed in 1977, with Smith sharing power with Bishop Abel Muzurewa, the Rev. Ndabangi Sithole (the original leader of ZANU) and Chief Jeremiah Cherau. In 1979 this led to the transitional regime of Zimbabwe Rhodesia, in which the white interests were protected with a number of reserved seats in Parliament, and control over the Judiciary and Armed Forces. The major black nationalist parties, ZANU and ZAPU, were excluded from this. A number of guerillas who changed sides were promoted from `terrorist' to auxilliaries of Muzerewa and Sithole, until Sithole's forces were eliminated in a power struggle. Lord Soames restored British rule as Governor in December 1979, and a Commonwealth Ceasefire Monitoring Group supervised the armed groups before free elections led to black majority rule in April 1980.
In lieu of repeatedly rediring and un-rediring this article, let's discuss what this article should be. I think it should be relatively tightly focused on the government and aspects of Zimbabwe connected to the name "Rhodesia", so somewhat narrow and in depth. For instance, to pick a topic near and dear to my heart :-), the postage stamps of Rhodesia would be described here, because they were issued by a different postal administration and have a different character than those of Zimbabwe. The broad-brush continuous narrative of Zimbabwean history is better attached to Zimbabwe however. Stan 15:03, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Well, Rhodesia (including Northern Rhodesia) had underwent several distinct politico-historical stages: from being BSA CO-administred, to self-governing colony (though constituionally, still under the authority of the CO; that is, Colonial Office in contradistinction to the Dominion Office, not 'Company' as in Cecil Rhodes' BSA CO), to terriotries within the Federation (CAF), and finally UDI Rhodesia (including the Republican stage of UDI Rhodesia, as well as the short-lived Internal Settlement Z-R). I believe the focus should be on the history of Zamebezia in so far as it includes a 'Rhodesia' (of any form, of any complexion, at any point in time in history). Thanks. El_C 17:49, 9 Aug 2004.
To clarify, I meant the protectorate of Northern Rhodesia within its own entry. I can see how my comments above might be confusing. It is convinient to approach the term Rhodesia as follows: 'Early BSA chartered company Rhodesia,' followed by the 'Self-Governing Colony of Southern Rhodesia' (1921 Constitution-to-UDI), the 'Territory of Southern [and Northern] Rhodesia within the Central African Federation (CAF),' and then simply 'Rhodesia' (Northern Rhodesia ceases to exist as such), though the appearance of a 'Republic of Rhodesia' a near decade later should be noted, as should, finally, the very short-lived 'Z-R' a near decade after that. El_C
Rhodesia(s) rewrites, eventually
I might as well make it encyclopedic (my memory needed refreshing, as the above comment clearly indicates) in its details. The first step I have taken (today) was to create Rhodesia (disambiguation):
- I am in the midst of completely rewriting the Southern Rhodesia (the political-geographic area that eventually became Zimbabwe) article, covering 1888-1964, and concluding with UDI, 1965.
- I then intend on rewriting the Central African Federation article.
- I then intend on rewriting this article as (post-Southern) Rhodesia (1965-1979), beginning briefly with pre-UDI (1964), and ending with a mention of Internal Settlement's Zimbabwe-Rhodesia (1979), and finally, the immediate events leading to Zimbabwean independence (1980).
- Possibly also rewriting the Z-R (at the very least, revising) article.
- Possibly, also rewriting the Northern Rhodesia (the political-geographic area that eventually became Zambia) article.
- Also, 'possibly,' rewriting/creating and/or combining the earliest forms of European settelement in what later became Southern Rhodesia and Northern Rhodesia: Mashonaland, Matabeleland, North Zambezia, South Zambezia, North West Rhodesia, North East Rhodesia, and the Rhodesia protectorate.
Rewriting the ~60-year history in the Southern Rhodesia article should take me a while, and then there is the 10-year history of the CAF in its article, so it will be quite some time before I will (following the chronology of these) have a chance to begin work on this article with its (very eventful) ~15-year history. El_C
- Sounds like a good plan! Be sure to leave space for stamp stuff :-) , I have stamps from all the periods to scan and upload. Contemporary photos for illustration would be good, if you have them. Stan 05:52, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Nice, I'm glad you approve of my plan. My father used to collect stamps, I never really got into the collecting aspect of it, but was always fond of looking through his albums, some really nice looking stamps, which are... nice to look at. :) At any rate, of course there will be space for stamps! :D
- Feel free to start the stamp section (from any period) any time at the bottom of my talk-page where I am currently working on the first article (Southern Rhodesia) in the rewrite agenda. I am interested to see the scans for these. Thanks again for your words of encouragment! El_C
Also (I noticed that you specialize in military history), so whenever I address parts pertaining specifically to military history (Matabele War, Boer War, Empire Training Scheme and WWII contributions, uprisings in the CAF, ZANU/ZAPU guerilla warfare and Rhodesian counter-insurgency, etc.) any insights you could offer on these fronts would be greatly appreciated. El_C
- I was hoping to read and learn. :-) A few bits of generic advice; considering doing the rewriting incrementally from outlines published on the appropriate talk pages, so you can get reader feedback as you go, always search around for terms that you don't think are written up (we have far more articles than anybody realizes, they're just not linked to sufficiently), and add all the references with ISBNs so we know what to shop for. :-) Stan 16:18, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Heh, thanks for the advice, but this is going to be a complete rewrite (I have read the outlines though, at any rate); I favour writing the draft for an article of this scope on my talk page (comments are welcomed at the bottom); yes, seraching for pertinent WP articles is..., pertinent; due to the nature of the subject, no ISBN links for the References, I'm afraid, as most of these are either LCCNs or nothing — Rhodesia no longer exists, so one would have to go to extra length, attempting to obtain these through a neaest Univ. lib., etc., but of course, many are easily available through amazon.com/.co.uk et al. El_C
I know quite a bit about Rhodesian special warfare, like the Rhodesian SAS and Selous Scouts, and some lesser well known units like the Grays Scouts, Rhodesian Armored Car regiment and Wounded Eagles volunteers. If someone decides to do a Rhodesian military history section or even a full article, I can probably be of help on the paramilitary and special operations aspects. Scuzz138
- Sounds promising, Scuzz138! Allow me to say how excited and pleased I am to learn of your offer, and I hope to make the most from your expertise, both for enhancing my own understanding, as well for improving the quality of the articles in my proposed rewrites of the pertinent Rhodesian series – for our purposes, post-UDI. Still, and I know this relates less to this aforementioned counter-insurgancy, are you privy to any details with respect to Southern Rhodesian Territorial troops during the decade of the CAF ? Finally, are you familliar with Cilliers, J.K. Counter-Insurgency in Rhodesia (Croom Helm, Ltd., Sydney, Australia, 1985) ? If so, any thoughts on this work would be much appreciated. Writing somewhat in haste, I'll post more thoughts either on your talk page or here soon. Thanks! Yours sincerely, El_C
Oh no problem about the offer, Rhodesia is a passion of mine, I plan on going there when the Zanu-PF isnt in power. Anyway, I know a little bit about the South Rhodesian Territorial Army and the King's Nyasaland Rifles from the colonial era, not as much as the terr and counter-terr units as in the post UDI republic but as I said I do know a little bit about the earlier military history, like the fact that South Rhodesia and Nyasaland contributed more men per capita than any other countries on earth to stop hitler. Anyway, ill focus on the counterinsurgency first but ill work my way as far back to the BSE security forces in time. I also have some relatively rare documents that might be of interest. If you'd like to see them email me and ask, ill get them to you immediately. Scuzz138
Excelent! Tis a beautiful, enchanting place, no doubt about that, but indeed, the situation is highly unstable right now and unsafe; these are desperate times for the people of Zimbabwe – I am highly critical (from the Left, that is) of the ZANU-PF regime. As for WWII contributions, these were indeed extraordinarily significant per capita (I write about this in my Southern Rhodesia draft's WWII section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:El_C/Southern_Rhodesia#WWII:_the_Great_Boost.2C_1939-1945)), though, note that your assessment of the greatest per capita contribution only applies to Europeans who mobalized approximately a sixth of their population to the war effort (!) – but, the African Rhodesians' contributions under the ARR, I'm not sure about Nyasaland, were far less significant on a per capita basis, only one hundredth or so from their respective population. But I digress, as is my nature (did I mention that I am rather long-winded?). As I (just now) mentioned on my talk page, I requiere in my Southern Rhodesia draft, any help you can offer with the BSA Co's era (and not just military history specifically, but also social, political, economic, etc. historical overviews). So, any attention you could spare on that would be appreciated – in general, any attention you could give to what I have written thus far on these issues (my SR draft, the CAF article, the URP, etc., see my user page for a list which includes these articles).
Finally, thanks for the offer, yes, I am very interested in seeing these documents you speak of! I presume you were thinking of scanning them (?), if so, please email me (wikipedia email function) with these scans, I am courious and am looking forward to seeing these! Lastly, perhaps you have materials (including, and perhaps not limited to these aforementioned documents) that you could scan and which qualify under the GFDL, that we can use for the article (maps and pictures especially). Just finding a picture of Huggins (Lord Malvern), for example, is proving quite a feat for me, and one would think that, to quote Robert Blake (which, as you may notice, I am fond of doing) considering that his "twenty three years of continuous power [was] a record unsurpassed in any of the countries under the British Crown and only approached by Sir Robert Walpole in England and Mackenzie King in Canada," he should have his picture in Wikipedia. Well, I seem to have written more than I intended, while still failing to touch on everything I wished to comment on. As mentioned elsewhere, more thoughts soon.
Best Regards,
Needs NPOV
I don't think this article adequately conforms to Wikipedia's NPOV policy, currently it seems to take a rather sympathetic view, with phrases such as heavy heart and the way the article attempts to explain Ian Smith's policy of disenfranchment is not NPOV either. -- Joolz 19:45, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
This is a racist piece of shit.
- The POV sections appear to have been added by anonymous user 64.30.254.57 in May [1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rhodesia&diff=14033318&oldid=13998373). I have reverted the article to the last NPOV version: I dont think anything of value has been added in the interim, but if so I appologise! Iain 13:12, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)