Railway African Workers' Union | |
Founded | 1949 |
---|---|
Dissolved | 1967 |
Location | |
Key people | Joshua Nkomo, General Secretary; Dixon Konkola, President |
The Railway African Workers' Union (R.A.W.U.) was a trade union in Rhodesia which represented black African railway workers employed by the Rhodesian Railways.
The RAWU was formed through the merger of the Northern Rhodesian African Railway Workers Trade Union (ARTWU) and the Southern Rhodesian Rhodesia Railways African Employees' Union (RRAEU) at a meeting in Broken Hill in July 1955. [1] Dixon Konkola, the president of the ARTWU, was elected president of the new unified body, but was prevented by the government from visiting Southern Rhodesia, despite the union being based in Bulawayo. [1] The combined union had a membership of 22,000. [2] Several key leaders in the movement for majority rule in Rhodesia were active in the RAWU, including Joshua Nkomo (General Secretary), Aaron Ndabambi Dlomo (President) and Knight Maripe (Secretary-General). [3] [4] Following majority rule in 1980, the RAWU became the Zimbabwe Amalgamated Railwaymen's Union (ZARU). [2]
Rhodesia, officially from 1970 the Republic of Rhodesia, was an unrecognised state in Southern Africa from 1965 to 1979, equivalent in territory to modern Zimbabwe. Rhodesia was the de facto successor state to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since achieving responsible government in 1923. A landlocked nation, Rhodesia was bordered by South Africa to the south, Bechuanaland to the southwest, Zambia to the northwest, and Mozambique to the east. From 1965 to 1978, Rhodesia was one of two independent states on the African continent governed by a white minority of European descent and culture, the other being South Africa.
Northern Rhodesia was a protectorate in south central Africa, formed in 1911 by amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of Barotziland-North-Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia. It was initially administered, as were the two earlier protectorates, by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), a chartered company, on behalf of the British Government. From 1924, it was administered by the British Government as a protectorate, under similar conditions to other British-administered protectorates, and the special provisions required when it was administered by BSAC were terminated.
The Colony of Southern Rhodesia was a landlocked self-governing British Crown colony in southern Africa, established in 1923 and consisting of British South Africa Company territories lying south of the Zambezi River. The region was informally known as south Zambesia until annexed by Britain at the behest of Cecil John Rhodes's business, the British South Africa Company. The bounding territories were Bechuanaland (Botswana), Northern Rhodesia (Zambia), Moçambique (Mozambique), Transvaal Republic.
The Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) was a statement adopted by the Cabinet of Rhodesia on 11 November 1965, announcing that Rhodesia, a British territory in southern Africa that had governed itself since 1923, now regarded itself as an independent sovereign state. The culmination of a protracted dispute between the British and Rhodesian governments regarding the terms under which the latter could become fully independent, it was the first unilateral break from the United Kingdom by one of its colonies since the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776. The UK, the Commonwealth and the United Nations all deemed Rhodesia's UDI illegal, and economic sanctions, the first in the UN's history, were imposed on the breakaway colony. Amid near-complete international isolation, Rhodesia continued as an unrecognised state with the assistance of South Africa and Portugal.
"Rise, O Voices of Rhodesia" was the national anthem of Rhodesia and Zimbabwe Rhodesia between 1974 and 1979. The tune was that of "Ode to Joy", the Fourth Movement from Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which had been adopted as the official European continental anthem by the Council of Europe in 1972. The music used in Rhodesia was an original sixteen-bar arrangement by Captain Ken MacDonald, the bandmaster of the Rhodesian African Rifles. A national competition was organised by the government to find an appropriate set of lyrics to match the chosen tune, and won by Mary Bloom of Gwelo.
The Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) is a Zimbabwean socialist political party. It is a militant organization and political party that campaigned for majority rule in Rhodesia, from its founding in 1961 until 1980. In 1987, it merged with the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. It was relaunched in 2008.
Sir Roland "Roy" Welensky, was a Northern Rhodesian politician and the second and last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.
The Rhodesian Bush War—also called the Second Chimurenga as well as the Zimbabwe War of Liberation—was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia . The conflict pitted three forces against one another: the Rhodesian white minority-led government of Ian Smith ; the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the military wing of Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union; and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army of Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union.
White Zimbabweans are people in Zimbabwe who are of White (European) descent. In linguistic cultural and historical terms, these Zimbabweans of European ethnic origin are divided among the English-speaking descendants of British settlers, the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Afrikaners from South Africa, and those descended from Greek and Portuguese immigrants.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions is the primary trade union federation in Zimbabwe. The Secretary General of ZCTU is Japhet Moyo and the president is Peter Mutasa. The former General Secretary was Morgan Tsvangirai. Jeffrey Mutandare is a former President of the ZCTU.
The African Trade Union Congress (ATUC) was a national trade union centre in Rhodesia. The ATUC represented black African workers, and was opposed to the system of white minority rule in Rhodesia.
Rhodesia had limited democracy in the sense that it had the Westminster parliamentary system with multiple political parties contesting the seats in parliament, but as the voting was dominated by the White settler minority, and Black Africans only had a minority level of representation at that time, it was regarded internationally as a racist country.
The Rhodesia Labour Party was a political party which existed in Southern Rhodesia from 1923 until the 1950s. Originally formed on the model of the British Labour Party from trade unions and being especially dominated by railway workers, it formed the main opposition party from 1934 to 1946. The party suffered a catastrophic split during the Second World War and lost all its seats, and a further split over the attitude to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland ended its involvement in Rhodesian politics.
The Southern Rhodesia African National Congress (SRANC) was a political party active between 1957–1959 in Southern Rhodesia. Committed to the promotion of indigenous African welfare, it was the first fully fledged black nationalist organisation in the country. While short-lived—it was outlawed by the predominantly white minority government in 1959—it marked the beginning of political action towards black majority rule in Southern Rhodesia, and was the original incarnation of the National Democratic Party (NDP); the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU); the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU); and the Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), which has governed Zimbabwe continuously since 1980. Many political figures who later became prominent, including Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, were members of the SRANC.
Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth of Nations have had a controversial and stormy diplomatic relationship. Zimbabwe is a former member of the Commonwealth, having withdrawn in 2003, and the issue of Zimbabwe has repeatedly taken centre stage in the Commonwealth, both since Zimbabwe's independence and as part of the British Empire.
The modern political history of Zimbabwe starts with the arrival of white people to what was dubbed Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. The country was initially run by an administrator appointed by the British South Africa Company. The prime ministerial role was first created in October 1923, when the country achieved responsible government, with Sir Charles Coghlan as its first Premier. The third Premier, George Mitchell, renamed the post Prime Minister in 1933.
The Bledisloe Commission, also known as the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Royal Commission, was a Royal Commission, appointed in 1937 and undertaking its enquiries between 1937 and 1939. to examine the possible closer union of the three British territories in Central Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. These territories were to some degree economically inter-dependent, and it was suggested that an association would promote their rapid development. Its chairman was Lord Bledisloe.
The Rhodesian Railway Workers' Union (R.R.W.U.) was a trade union in Rhodesia which represented European railway workers employed by the Rhodesian Railways.
Charles Mzingeli (1905–1980) grew up on a Catholic mission station near Plumtree in Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. At the age of 14 he ran away to work on the railways, before moving to Bulawayo, where he became involved in the Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU), and worked with figures like 'Sergeant' Masotsha Ndlovu. The ICU, a radical trade union, started in South Africa in 1919, but spread into neighboring colonies in the 1920s and 1930s. In 1929 Mzingeli was sent to Harare Township at Salisbury as the ICU’s organizing secretary. The ICU disintegrated in South Africa as well as in Southern Rhodesia in the 1930s, but it had pioneered black trade unionism in the latter, where it had played a major role in both urban and rural protests.
Rowan Cronjé was a Rhodesian politician who served in the cabinet under prime ministers Ian Smith and Abel Muzorewa, and was later a Zimbabwean MP. He emigrated to South Africa in 1985 and served in the government of Bophuthatswana.