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Rhodie is a colloquial term typically applied to a white Zimbabwean or expatriate Rhodesian.
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2013) |
Rhodie is a colloquial term typically applied to a white Zimbabwean or expatriate Rhodesian.
The term Rhodie was first used by British Army and civil service personnel in Rhodesia (renamed Zimbabwe in 1980) during the period between the Lancaster House Agreement of December 1979 and the formal independence of Zimbabwe in April 1980. [1] The term was initially applied to all white Zimbabweans. After independence, the term began to be applied increasingly to those whites who were nostalgic for the past. [2] The nostalgia a Rhodie feels relates particularly to the UDI era (1965 to 1979), in which they fought significant socialist and communist insurgencies, and during which the predominantly white government, headed by the Prime Minister Ian Smith, declared independence from Britain in an attempt to prevent any commitment to a set timetable regarding black majority rule. The UDI project ended in the Bush War of the 1970s, fought between the Rhodesian Security Forces and the communist-backed black nationalist insurgents of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). [3]
Usage of the term Rhodie changed further in post-independence Zimbabwe. It began to be applied to a white Zimbabwean regardless of ethnic descent or country of origin. An image published in The Sunday Times Magazine in 1984 showed a poster near Harare reading "Private Party Invitation Only No Drugs No Rhodies No Racists No Troublemakers Allowed on These Premises". [4]
A Rhodie bar is an establishment frequented by Rhodies and is often decorated with memorabilia of the UDI era and the Rhodesian Bush War. [3]
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 1979, 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.
Ian Douglas Smith was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first leader to be born and raised in Rhodesia, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965 in opposition to the UK's demands for the implementation of majority rule as a condition for independence. His 15 years in power were defined by the country's international isolation and involvement in the Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted Rhodesia's armed forces against the Soviet- and Chinese-funded military wings of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).
Rhodesia's 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.
The Rhodesian Front (RF) was a conservative political party in Southern Rhodesia, subsequently known as Rhodesia. Formed in March 1962 by white Rhodesians opposed to decolonisation and majority rule, it won that December's general election and subsequently spearheaded the country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1965, remaining the ruling party and upholding white minority rule through the majority of the Bush War until 1979. Initially led by Winston Field, the party was led by the majority of its existence by co-founder Ian Smith, who would later go following the end of the Bush War and the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe, it dissolved in 1981 and was succeeded by the Republican Front.
The Rhodesian Bush War, also called the Second Chimurenga as well as the Zimbabwean War of Liberation, was a civil conflict from July 1964 to December 1979 in the unrecognised country of Rhodesia.
The British South Africa Police (BSAP) was, for most of its existence, the police force of Southern Rhodesia and Rhodesia. It was formed as a paramilitary force of mounted infantrymen in 1889 by Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company, from which it took its original name, the British South Africa Company's Police. Initially run directly by the company, it began to operate independently in 1896, at which time it also dropped "Company's" from its name. It thereafter served as Rhodesia's regular police force, retaining its name, until 1980, when it was superseded by the Zimbabwe Republic Police, soon after the country's reconstitution into Zimbabwe in April that year.
White Zimbabweans are Zimbabwean people of European descent. In linguistic, cultural, and historical terms, these Zimbabweans of European ethnic origin are mostly English-speaking descendants of British settlers. A small minority are either Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Afrikaners from South Africa or those descended from Greek, Portuguese, Italian, and Jewish immigrants.
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.
Pieter Kenyon Fleming-Voltelyn van der Byl was a Rhodesian politician who served as his country's Foreign Minister from 1974 to 1979 as a member of the Rhodesian Front (RF). A close associate of Prime Minister Ian Smith, Van der Byl opposed attempts to compromise with the British government and domestic black nationalist opposition on the issue of majority rule throughout most of his time in government. However, in the late 1970s he supported the moves which led to majority rule and internationally recognised independence for Zimbabwe.
Lieutenant General George Peter Walls was a Rhodesian soldier. He served as the Head of the Armed Forces of Rhodesia during the Rhodesian Bush War from 1977 until his exile from the country in 1980.
The history of Rhodesia from 1965 to 1979 covers Rhodesia's time as a state unrecognised by the international community following the predominantly white minority government's Unilateral Declaration of Independence on 11 November 1965. Headed by Prime Minister Ian Smith, the Rhodesian Front remained in government until 1 June 1979, when the country was reconstituted as Zimbabwe Rhodesia.
Air Rhodesia Flight 825 was a scheduled passenger flight that was shot down by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) on 3 September 1978, during the Rhodesian Bush War. The aircraft involved, a Vickers Viscount named the Hunyani, was flying the last leg of Air Rhodesia's regular scheduled service from Victoria Falls to the capital Salisbury, via the resort town of Kariba.
The Police Support Unit, also known by their nickname of the Black Boots, is a paramilitary wing of the Zimbabwe Republic Police. They were founded as a native police force but later developed into a counter-insurgency unit of the British South Africa Police in Rhodesia during the Rhodesian Bush War. The unit was the only paramilitary unit retained by the Zimbabwe Republic Police after the country's reconstitution as Zimbabwe.
The Southern Rhodesia Communist Party was an illegal, underground communist party established in Southern Rhodesia which was formed in large part due to the minority settler rule, which had an immensely repressive structure. It emerged in 1941 from a split in the Rhodesia Labour Party. The party consisted of a small, and predominantly white, membership. During the parties existence it had links to other communist parties such as the Communist Party of South Africa and the Communist Party of Great Britain. The party disappeared in the late 1940s, with the exact date of its dissolution not being known. Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing author of various works including “The Grass is Singing,” is the most well known member of the Southern Rhodesian Communist Party.
The history of the Jews in Zimbabwe reaches back over one century. Present-day Zimbabwe was formerly known as Southern Rhodesia and later as Rhodesia.
William John Harper was a politician, general contractor and Royal Air Force fighter pilot who served as a Cabinet minister in Rhodesia from 1962 to 1968, and signed that country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain in 1965. Born into a prominent Anglo-Indian merchant family in Calcutta, Harper was educated in India and England and joined the RAF in 1937. He served as an officer throughout the Second World War and saw action as one of "The Few" in the Battle of Britain, during which he was wounded in action. Appalled by Britain's granting of independence to India in 1947, he emigrated to Rhodesia on retiring from the Air Force two years later.
David Colville Smith was a farmer and politician in Rhodesia and its successor states, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe. He served in the cabinet of Rhodesia as Minister of Agriculture from 1968 to 1976, Minister of Finance from 1976 to 1979, and Minister of Commerce and Industry from 1978 to 1979. From 1976 to 1979, he also served Deputy Prime Minister of Rhodesia. He continued to serve as Minister of Finance in the government of Zimbabwe Rhodesia in 1979. In 1980, he was appointed Minister of Trade and Commerce of the newly independent Zimbabwe, one of two whites included in the cabinet of Prime Minister Robert Mugabe.
Relations between the UK and Zimbabwe have been complex since the latter's independence in 1980. The territory of modern Zimbabwe had been colonised by the British South Africa Company in 1890, with the Pioneer Column raising the Union Jack over Fort Salisbury and formally establishing company, and by extension, British, rule over the territory. In 1920 Rhodesia, as the land had been called by the company in honour of their founder, Cecil Rhodes, was brought under jurisdiction of the Crown as the colony of Southern Rhodesia. Southern Rhodesia over the decades following its establishment would slowly be populated by large numbers of Europeans emigrants who came to form a considerable diaspora, largely consisting of Britons but also smaller groups of Italians, Greeks and Afrikaners. A settler culture that had already existed since the time of company would come to cement fully and the white population began to identify as Rhodesians, often in conjunction with British/Afrikaner/Southern European identities of their ancestors. Southern Rhodesia would go on to participate heavily in both the First and Second wars, providing soldiers and military equipment to the British war effort. During the years after the war, the relationship between Britain and Southern Rhodesia became increasingly strained. The UK had opted to decolonise Africa and had adopted a firm policy of no independence before majority rule, which deeply upset the white establishment of the colony, in particular the radical Rhodesian Front party led by Winston Field and later, Ian Smith. Relations between the British Government and the colonial Southern Rhodesian government deteriorated for much of the early 1960s and negotiations between the two dragged on with little to no success. Eventually, relations broke down entirely and Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declared independence from Britain. The move was met with zero recognition from the international community and the UK government and the illegitimate state was still formally considered under British sovereignty for its roughly 15-year span of existence. For the first 5 years of its proclaimed independence, Rhodesia still declared loyalty to the Queen Elizabeth II as a would-be Commonwealth realm, but this was never recognised by the British monarch who continued to encourage Smith's illegal government to resign. Given her refusal to appoint a Governor-general, from 1965 to 1970 an "Officer Administering the Government" served as the de facto head of state. Rhodesia eventually moved to sever all links with Britain and became a republic with a president in 1970. Throughout the subsequent Rhodesian Bush War between white Rhodesians and black paramilitaries such as ZANU and ZAPU, the UK continued to remain staunchly opposed to the rogue state and extensively sanctioned it, even enforcing blockades using the Royal Navy to cut off Rhodesian oil imports via Portuguese Mozambique. When Rhodesia failed to hold out after 15 years of fighting and came to the negotiating table with the black resistance groups and moderate African nationalist parties, the UK again became directly involved in Rhodesia's affairs. After a brief stint as the nation of Zimbabwe Rhodesia following an Internal Settlement that was denounced by the international community for not being satisfactory enough, the nation transiently reverted to its status as a self-governing British colony before being granted full independence and majority rule as Zimbabwe in 1980 under the landmark Lancaster House Agreement.
The Rhodesian government actively recruited white personnel from other countries from the mid-1970s until 1980 to address manpower shortages in the Rhodesian Security Forces during the Rhodesian Bush War. It is estimated that between 800 and 2,000 foreign volunteers enlisted. The issue attracted a degree of controversy as Rhodesia was the subject of international sanctions that banned military assistance due to its illegal declaration of independence and the control which the small white minority exerted over the country. The volunteers were often labelled as mercenaries by opponents of the Rhodesian regime, though the Rhodesian government did not regard or pay them as such.
Even the British squaddies look with faint contempt on the Rhodesians (or 'Rhodies' as they sometimes call them; military slang mushrooms overnight).
'Rhodies' – as whites who long for the old pre-Zimbabwe days of white-ruled Rhodesia are known – called such white people '******boeties' [****** lovers] and despised them.
For the leftovers of Ian Smith's killing machine who people Fuller's new book, the past is all there is. Yesterday's world had rules of engagement. Remaindered from the Rhodesian war, all they have now is their ghosts inadequately repressed by extreme religion, alcohol, purple pills or a penchant for tearing down bars. Don't believe these guys don't exist. Spot them at the end of a Harare Rhodie bar or even worse stumbling towards you across the terrace of a bush hotel and it's time to grab the bill.Review: Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller.
When Prince Charles visits Zimbabwe this weekend he will find a nation still divided four years after independence. But now the divisions run deepest within the dwindling white community between young permissive trendies and fervent 'born-again' evangelists, between those who prefer to be African rather than European and those who can't wait for a stamp on their emigration applications.