Date Posted: Thursday 22-Nov-2007
[This is the most amazing article I have ever seen written by a
Black African. The ending is mind-blowing. It nearly made me cry -
and normally, nothing makes me cry! I was totally blown away by
this.
This black man did something I have been crying for for ages. He
formed the "African Conservative Forum". Among his dreams are to
distribute Ian Smith's book, "The Great Betrayal", among black
African leaders and to build a library in memory of Ian Smith of
Rhodesia in Nairobi, Kenya!!
Read what he writes about Robert Mugabe and South Africa. This
man knows what he is talking about. I'm telling you, if there were
more black people like this guy, there would be so much hope for
Africa and Africa would boom and grow and develop like you have
never seen. Perhaps, in the throes of hell, there is hope for us in
Africa yet. Jan]
Posted by Mukui Waruiru on November 01, 2007
The ongoing violence in Iraq has caused observers to reflect on
the challenges of bringing democracy to tribal societies. Before the
Iraq War was launched in 2003, the Bush administration assured
Americans and the world that the removal of Saddam Hussein would
result in the creation of a peaceful, well-governed, and democratic
society. But it is now becoming clear that building a successful
democracy is not as easy as many Americans had assumed. Pure
democracy is a system that works well in particular cultures, and
not all cultures are equally capable of building harmonious
democratic societies.
If the Bush administration had been interested in studying the
track record of democracy-building efforts in tribal cultures, they
should have studied the experience of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the
introduction of pure democracy 50 years ago resulted in disaster for
the people of the region. For the purposes of this article, I am
defining ‘pure democracy’ as majority rule under universal suffrage,
in which all citizens of adult age are guaranteed the right to vote
in national elections.
In 1957, Ghana became the first black African country to gain
independence from European colonial rule (Sudan gained its
independence in 1956, but it regards itself as part of Arab Africa,
rather than black Africa). The Prime Minister of Ghana, Kwame
Nkrumah, had won an election in 1956, campaigning on a platform of
attaining immediate independence from British colonial rule. Nkrumah
had served as Prime Minister from 1951 to 1956, a period in which
Ghana enjoyed internal self-government, under the supervision of the
British colonial governor in the country. The governor had the power
to veto decisions by Nkrumah that he felt were harmful to the
interests of the colony. This was the period in which Ghana enjoyed
the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity in its history.
Two conservative Ghanaian politicians, J. B. Danquah and Kofi
Busia, opposed Nkrumah’s campaign for immediate independence. They
wanted to preserve the status quo, because of the stability and
prosperity which Ghana was enjoying. They preferred a more gradual
path to independence, in contrast to the campaign for rapid
decolonization. Both men realized that without the supervision of
the British colonial power, Nkrumah would turn Ghana into a
dictatorship, and impose his deeply-held Marxist beliefs on the
Ghanaian people.
The opposition political party that was supported by Danquah and
Busia lost the 1956 elections, and Nkrumah was able to lead his
country to independence on March 6, 1957. The dire predictions of
Danquah and Busia came true, and in a couple of years, Nkrumah
established Africa’s first post-colonial dictatorship. Danquah was
subsequently arrested and jailed as a political prisoner, and he
eventually died because of the terrible prison conditions in which
he was held. Busia fled the country in fear of his life, and he
returned to the country only after Nkrumah was overthrown in a
Western-backed military coup in 1966.
Most of the Black African nations that gained independence after
Ghana followed its path by establishing one-party dictatorships.
Observers soon began to describe the practice of democracy in Africa
as ‘one-man, one-vote, one-time’. In many of the cases, the winning
political party at the independence elections used its majority in
the national parliament, to pass legislation outlawing the existence
of opposition political parties. This left the ruling party with a
monopoly of power. This trend challenged the widely held notion that
pure democracy leads to more freedom. If anything, in many
countries, Africans enjoyed greater personal freedom and prosperity
under colonial rule, than they do today under independent
governments. While opposition parties have been permitted to exist
in some countries in the last few years, the oppressive habits
associated with one-party dictatorial rule have been hard to break.
In the 1960s, American conservatives were outspoken against the
wave of decolonization and democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa,
that was being pushed by the United States and the former Soviet
Union. William F. Buckley, in his book, Up From Liberalism wrote:
“We see in the revolt of the masses in Africa the mischief of the
white man’s abstractions: for the West has, by its doctrinaire
approval of democracy, deprived itself of the moral base from which
to talk back to the apologists of rampant nationalism….Democracy, to
be successful, must be practiced by politically mature people among
whom there is a consensus on the meaning of life within their
society….If the majority wills what is socially atavistic, then to
thwart the majority may be the indicated, though concededly the
undemocratic, course. It is more important for a community, wherever
situated geographically, to affirm and live by civilized standards
than to labor at the job of swelling the voting lists”.
Buckley tried to make the distinction between universal suffrage
and freedom, in his analysis of the conditions in the American South
before the passage of Civil Rights legislation, which he compared to
colonial rule in Africa:
“Does the vote really make one free? I do not believe it
necessarily does….Being able to vote is no more to have realized
freedom than being able to read is to have realized wisdom.
Reasonable limitations upon the vote are not recommended exclusively
by tyrants or oligarchs (was Jefferson either?). The problem of the
South is not how to get the vote for the Negro, but how to train the
Negro – and a great many whites – to cast a thoughtful vote”
Buckley was however careful to distinguish his position in
opposing universal franchise in the American South, from that of the
southern segregationists who advanced genetic arguments in opposing
black voting rights in the South:
“There are no scientific grounds for assuming congenital Negro
disabilities. The problem is not biological, but cultural and
educational”
Today, if one was to argue in favor of restrictions to the right
to vote, one would be labeled as an enemy of freedom. But, as we
have seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, Venezuela, and in much of Black
Africa, democracy does not necessarily lead to freedom. With
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fleeing their country as a result of
the violence that has engulfed that nation, can anyone seriously
suggest that Iraqis are freer today than they were under Saddam
Hussein? Are the nations of Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of
Congo freer today, than they were under colonial rule?
The state governments that existed in the American South during
the Jim Crow era discredited the respectable and honorable Western
tradition of placing reasonable restrictions on who to allow to
vote. Putting restrictions on the vote using poll taxes, literacy
tests, and property ownership qualifications, has helped many
Western nations to preserve liberty and order for centuries. But
Southern state governments in the post-Reconstruction era applied
such restrictions unfairly, in a manner which was blatantly
discriminatory on the basis of race. In the early part of the 20th
Century, Booker T. Washington called on black Americans to work hard
to improve their educational and economic status, in order to more
fully participate in the American political process. But by denying
educated and financially successful Blacks access to the ballot, the
state governments of the South destroyed Washington’s vision of
building racial harmony in America. As a result, divisive demagogues
like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have risen to prominence, and
shape the agenda on race relations in America today.
Universal suffrage is a very recent development in the West.
Britain attained universal suffrage only in 1928, when all adults
over the age of 21 were allowed to vote. A century earlier, voting
in Britain was limited to a tiny percentage of the adult male
population. The Tories held power from 1783 to 1830, a 46 year
stretch that was only briefly interrupted in 1806-1807. Charles Grey
finally took over as a Whig Prime Minister in 1830. He passed the
Reform Act in 1832, which significantly expanded the percentage of
male citizens who were allowed to vote. The 1832 reforms gave one in
five adult males the right to vote. The property qualifications for
voting were gradually lowered over the decades, enfranchising more
and more people, before they were finally abolished in 1928. During
this time, the educational, social, and cultural level of the
British masses was gradually raised, which enabled a successful
transition to majority rule without destabilizing the social order.
In the United States, the founding fathers set out to create a
constitutional republic, not a pure democracy. At the time the
Constitution was adopted, half of the white adult male population
could not meet the property qualification for voting in elections.
Because women could not vote, that meant that only 25 percent of the
white citizens of the US were entitled to vote. The U.S. finally
gained the universal franchise in 1965, where adult citizens of both
genders and all races were given the right to vote. By this time,
the majority of American families were middle-class people who owned
their homes—and therefore, such a measure did not threaten the
stability of the market economy. Given that Britain and the US took
so long to build well-functioning democratic systems, it is
unrealistic to expect African nations to have set up successful
democratic societies, given the high poverty rates and the low
levels of civilization of most of the population.
Classical liberals have long said that one cannot build a free
society without putting in place a political system that protected
property rights. The 17th Century English philosopher, John Locke,
asserted that the prerequisites for a free society were the
protection of life, liberty, and property. Locke did not limit his
definition of property to material goods, but included as a form of
property the ownership of one’s labor. Twentieth century Communists
understood that, by abolishing private property through
nationalization, they would completely strip private citizens of
their means of self-support and independence, reducing them to the
status of slaves. This led to a situation where people living under
Communism were completely dependent on the government for their very
survival, which allowed the government to control every aspect of
their lives.
With this understanding of liberalism, Ian Douglas Smith, the
former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, can be rightly regarded as
Africa’s first classical liberal revolutionary. In 1965, he led a
revolution for freedom, when he initiated the Unilateral Declaration
of Independence (UDI) of Rhodesia from Britain. The UDI was intended
to preserve Christianity, freedom, and civilization. For that
courageous action, Smith became one of the most vilified men in
history, and his country was subjected to comprehensive United
Nations economic sanctions in 1966. He was falsely labeled as a
racist and white supremacist. But, unlike the architects of
apartheid in neighboring South Africa, he has never supported claims
that blacks are inherently inferior. However, like Buckley, Smith
recognized that the low levels of education and cultural development
of most of the blacks, made the establishment of a successful pure
democracy a difficult undertaking.
In addition, there were numerous previous examples of failed
attempts to establish pure democracies in Africa, from Guinea and
Ghana, to Nigeria and Uganda, and there was good reason to expect
that Rhodesia would follow a similarly tragic path if the universal
franchise was extended. Facing a possible future of either a Marxist
dictatorship or anarchy, the Rhodesian leadership declared
independence and prevented Britain from imposing majority rule in
the colony. The lives, liberty, and property of people of all races
in Rhodesia were preserved.
Smith was motivated by the desire to uphold the historical
Anglo-Saxon tradition of limiting the vote to that segment of the
population that would be able to use it responsibly. The Rhodesian
UDI of 1965 was modeled on the American Declaration of Independence
of 1776, and the Rhodesians had great respect and admiration for
America. However, the Rhodesian admiration for America was not
reciprocated, and the U.S. joined the rest of the world in
denouncing and isolating a friendly country.
The Rhodesian government was unfairly compared to the
segregationist state governments of the American South, and to South
Africa under apartheid rule. However, Rhodesia did not have the
rigid racial segregation that characterized those two other systems
of government, and Blacks were allowed to vote in Rhodesian
elections. Blacks were allowed to have 16 seats in the 66 member
Rhodesian parliament, while whites held 50 seats. Voting was limited
to those who could meet the literacy and property ownership
qualifications, just like in Britain and the United States in the
relatively recent past. Rhodesia was a limited democracy, not a pure
democracy.
It was expected that, with time, as black Rhodesians became
better educated and more prosperous, they would gradually gain
greater representation in the Rhodesian Parliament. Eventually,
white and black Rhodesians would share power in the Rhodesian
Parliament, under a 50-50 arrangement. This position fell short of
majority rule. But since the whites had created and built the
country, and were expected to pay a disproportionate share of the
taxes even in the future, this arrangement seemed to be fair. Many
white and black Rhodesians felt that this power sharing model would
prevent Rhodesia from becoming a Marxist dictatorship like Nkrumah’s
Ghana, or deteriorating into the chaos of the democratic republics
of Congo and Somalia. But the international community would not
accept anything less than black majority rule.
By the mid 1970s, Rhodesia had, proportionally, the largest black
middle-class in Africa, and it was growing rapidly. This was despite
the fact that Rhodesia was under U.N. economic sanctions, and the
government was spending vast sums of money waging a war against
Marxist terrorists, who were based in neighboring Mozambique and
Zambia. Despite those challenges, Rhodesia was a successful limited
democracy, governed by the rule of law, having independent courts,
and a multiparty system of government. The leader of the official
opposition in parliament was black, and he and other black members
of parliament were able to openly criticize Prime Minister Smith and
his government for what they felt were their shortcomings. This was
in stark contrast to the situation in the rest of Africa, where
one-party dictatorial rule was the norm, and criticism of the
president was equated with treason.
In 1979, a power-sharing agreement between white Rhodesians and
their moderate black allies was arrived at. Free and fair elections
were held under universal suffrage, which led to black majority
rule, but there were strong guarantees put in place to protect white
minority rights. The new government was headed by the moderate black
clergyman, Abel Muzorewa, and he was committed to maintaining
Rhodesia’s capitalist system and its economic prosperity. However,
Muzorewa’s government was denied recognition by the West, and
Rhodesia remained under U.N. economic sanctions. U.S. President
Jimmy Carter and British Prime Minister James Callaghan, demanded
new elections that would include the participation of terrorist
leaders who did not believe in the democratic process.
New elections were held in 1980, and the Maoist terrorist Robert
Mugabe won the vote through appeals to tribal sentiment and by
intimidating rural voters in the Shona-dominated provinces. Mugabe
was a devoted student of Kwame Nkrumah, having lived and worked in
Nkrumah’s Ghana in the late 1950s, where he closely observed how his
mentor managed his government. Since 1980, Rhodesians (now called
Zimbabweans), have had less freedom than they ever had under Smith.
The economy of Zimbabwe gradually declined from 1980 to 1999. In
the year 2000, the Mugabe regime launched the infamous invasions of
white-owned farms that completely destroyed the country’s
agriculturally-based economy. Ironically, the Zimbabwean government
already owned millions of acres of land, which it could have
re-distributed to poor blacks, without touching the white-owned
farms. But Mugabe did not want a sensible solution to the land
question. He was driven by the desire to punish white Zimbabweans
for supporting the emerging opposition party, known as the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC). As anyone with knowledge of the
situation in Zimbabwe knows, Mugabe never had any intention of
helping Zimbabwe’s poor, despite his rhetoric on the issue. The
black middle-class, which had thrived under Smith, has now been
almost completely wiped out. Just as the Bolsheviks of the former
Soviet Union enslaved the Russian people by abolishing private
property, Mugabe is now in the process of seizing privately-owned
business enterprises, just as he seized the white-owned commercial
farms. Instead of condemning Mugabe, corrupt African politicians
view Mugabe as some sort of hero, for his defiance of the West.
Out of concern for Africa’s future, I founded the African
Conservative Forum (ACF) in May, 2007. My organization seeks not
just the downfall of the Mugabe regime, but the complete dismantling
of the disastrous Marxist legacy that Nkrumah and Mugabe have
bequeathed to Africa. One of the major tasks that I plan to
undertake is the distribution of 10,000 copies of Ian Smith’s
autobiography, The Great Betrayal, to African legislators, civil
servants, academics, journalists, university students, diplomats and
others. Individuals or organizations that may be interested in
assisting in this important task, can contact me.
Reading Smith’s memoirs changed my life. His book helped to make
me a conservative. If African intellectuals were to get an
opportunity to read his autobiography, they would realize, as I did,
that the true freedom fighter from Rhodesia is Ian Smith, not Robert
Mugabe. Once they learn about the link between property and freedom,
and how pure democracy and political independence do not necessarily
translate into freedom, then they would get a true idea of what
freedom is all about.
If there is any African leader who deserves a presidential
library, it is Ian Smith. His memoirs spell out how Africa can move
forward to a future of liberty and prosperity. It is often said that
prophets are not honored in their home countries. Smith can
accurately be described as a prophet, because he predicted disaster
for Rhodesia once it came under the control of the communist
terrorist, Robert Mugabe. Many people who opposed Smith in the past
are finally coming to realize how right he was. In the British
Sunday Times newspaper of September 23, 2007, Judith Todd, a
left-liberal human rights activist who was one of Smith’s most
outspoken opponents in the 1970s, now admits that “Mugabe was rotten
from the start”.
Not surprisingly, the Marxist government of Zimbabwe viciously
attacks Smith’s legacy in the history books and in the
state-controlled media. But what is more difficult to understand is
the reaction of the brave men and women who make up the opposition
to the Mugabe regime, whenever the UDI era is mentioned. Zimbabwean
opposition activists, both white and black, make strenuous efforts
to distance themselves from Smith, out of fear of being labeled
lackeys of the colonialists by the Mugabe regime.
The minds of the Zimbabwean people have been so poisoned against
Smith, that it seems highly unlikely that he will receive the honor
he truly deserves, even if the opposition comes to power in the next
general elections scheduled for 2008. I often dream about building
an Ian Smith Library here in Nairobi, where I would be able to
educate future generations of African leaders about Smith’s
admirable legacy. But I guess, given the high cost of such a
project, it will remain an impossible dream.
In 1980, when Mugabe came to power, Rhodesia had a GDP per capita
that was comparable to that of Malaysia. Today, Malaysia is hailed
around the world as one of East Asia’s great economic success
stories, and is a newly industrialized country that manufactures
goods of all sorts. Yet, in 1980, Rhodesia had economic policies
that were more business-friendly than those of Malaysia, and a civil
service that was far more honest and efficient than Malaysia’s. Both
nations are former British colonies, and have a public service
modeled on that of Britain.
Where would Rhodesia be today, if Ian Smith’s vision of
power-sharing rather than majority rule, had come to pass? I will
try to hazard a guess. Rhodesia would have experienced an economic
boom without precedent in Africa’s history, with impressive
double-digit growth in the 1980s, 1990s, and beyond. The white
population would probably be double what it was in 1980, growing
from 250,000 to 500,000. This would have been partly as a result of
natural increase, because of the lower costs of raising children in
Rhodesia. Many of the hundreds of thousands of Portuguese settlers
who fled from the Communist revolutions in Angola and Mozambique
would have moved to Rhodesia. There would also have been some
immigration from South Africa, as well as from many Western nations,
attracted by Rhodesia’s pleasant climate and promising economic
future. All those whites would have brought useful skills that would
have benefited the country immensely.
Interestingly, the dynamism of the free market would have reduced
the racial disparities in land ownership in a fair and transparent
manner. This is because the rapid growth in manufacturing, tourism,
and other industries, would have led to many black workers
abandoning their jobs in the white farms for better economic
opportunities in the cities. The resulting rise in average black
agricultural wages would have put many white farms out of business,
and some of the farmers would have been forced to sub-divide and
sell their farms. The newly economically empowered blacks would have
purchased plots of land for residential use, or for small-scale
horticulture.
If Smith’s vision had prevailed, Zimbabwe would have had a GDP
per capita equal to, or higher than, that of Malaysia. But the sad
reality is that Zimbabwe’s GDP per capita today is lower than that
of Haiti. The Caribbean nations of Barbados and the Bahamas are
majority black former British colonies, and they can provide us with
a model of what the future could have been in Rhodesia, if the
Communists had not taken over. Both nations have maintained the
colonial tradition of providing strong protections for property
rights, and, today, both nations have a GDP per capita higher than
that of Malaysia.
My British and American friends often ask me to predict the
future of South Africa, and whether that nation will go the way of
Zimbabwe. I am often tempted to tell them what they want to hear –
the politically-correct answer that the situations in Zimbabwe and
South Africa are different, and that all is well in South Africa.
But the past record of the ANC does not give me much cause for
optimism. During the days of white rule, the ANC worked to mobilize
black support by stirring up anti-white hatred. The late ANC
activist, Peter Mokaba, is credited with creating the infamous
chant, “Kill the Boer, kill the farmer”. Not to be outdone, the main
rival of the ANC among the black radicals, the PAC party, had its
own rallying cry, “One settler, one bullet”.
As one can expect, the anti-white hatred that the ANC and PAC
stirred up during the era of white rule, did not dissipate with the
coming of majority rule. The ANC leadership blames all its failures
on whites and the supposed ‘legacy of apartheid’. There has also
been an explosion in the rate of violent crime, in which whites have
been disproportionately targeted, and which the ANC has shown an
unwillingness to deal with. Some 210,000 blacks and 40,000 whites
have been murdered since 1994. When he was challenged on his failure
to tackle violent crime, the South African Security Minister,
Charles Nqakula, told his critics that if they were unhappy with the
conditions in South Africa they should leave the country. His
statement was widely understood as being targeted at South African
whites.
Blacks in South Africa enjoy one of the highest standards of
living in Africa. Yet the ANC blames whites for the poverty and
landlessness of much of the black population. The government of
South Africa owns millions of hectares, and is the largest land
owner in South Africa. Instead of offering this land to South
Africa’s poor people of all races, the ANC focuses on making the
blacks envious of the white land owners who produce most of South
Africa’s food. The ANC plans to maintain its hold on power for
decades to come, by inciting racial resentment against the white
minority. There is a real danger that the country may join the long
list of failed democracies in Africa. Unless a new generation of
enlightened black leaders emerges in South Africa, committed to
promoting Christian values, property rights, and free market
economic policies, South Africa’s future looks bleak.
Mr. Waruiru, a native of Kenya, is the founder of the African
Conservative Forum, a Christian human rights and public policy
organization based in Nairobi. His website is