In June 2015, a young white man named Dylann Roof walked into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. After accepting an invitation to pray with the parishioners, Roof drew a Glock .45-caliber handgun and began to shoot. Within minutes, he fired some 74 rounds—killing nine church members, including the pastor and a state senator. Roof, we later learned, wore a jacket bearing two flags—one from apartheid South Africa and the other from white-minority-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). We also learned that the shooter, an avowed white supremacist, was a 21-year-old high school dropout who blamed African Americans for his failure to launch.
In the decade that followed the church massacre, members of the US ultra-right have increasingly turned to Rhodesia as their model for a white supremacist state. In particular, they have idolized the Selous Scouts, a brutal special forces regiment in the Rhodesian Army that killed an untold number of civilians, as well as insurgents fighting for democracy and majority rule. Promoting their views on social media platforms and in YouTube videos that garnered hundreds of thousands of followers, they attracted the attention of clothing vendors who began to market pro-Rhodesia t-shirts, hoodies, posters, and patches to white supremacists and gun lovers. Mimicking a Trump rallying cry, one retailer sold a red and white patch sporting the slogan, “Make Zimbabwe Rhodesia Again.”
The following year, Donald Trump was elected president of the US, in part as a result of anti-democratic gerrymandering and intensified voter restrictions that inhibited low-income populations and racial and ethnic minorities from exercising their Constitutional rights. Within months of Trump’s taking office, hundreds of white nationalists gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue honoring Confederate General Robert E. Lee. They attacked counter-protestors, killing one and injuring nearly three dozen more. Trump drew national attention when he refused to unequivocally condemn the white nationalists, claiming instead that there were “very fine people on both sides.”
As president, Trump welcomed white supremacists into the fold. Those who rejected democracy, equality, and the peaceful transfer of power, including Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, QAnon, and more than a dozen other neo-Nazi, neo-fascist white supremacist groups, formed the base of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol in 2021 following their candidate’s electoral defeat. Although their attempts to steal the election failed, racists, xenophobes, and other white supremacists had grown stronger under the care of the Trump administration.
While many journalists have exposed the composition and objectives of these ultra-right organizations, few have investigated the Rhodesian model that inspired them. Nor have they explored the ways in which moderates and liberals publicly decried Rhodesia’s racist, anti-democratic actions, while privately lending tacit support to the minority regime in order to protect their own interests. As we witness the erosion of democracy in the US, we would do well to heed the lessons of white-ruled Rhodesia nearly 60 years ago.
Rhodesia, a white-ruled British settler colony established in Southern Africa in 1890, was governed by a narrow minority of its population. In the 1960s, when many other African colonies were achieving political independence, whites in Rhodesia, who comprised just 7% of the population, panicked. White farmers, ranchers, and mine owners, who benefited the most from cheap black labor, manipulated the working-class whites to fear their fate should the country embrace democracy. Blacks, who comprised 93% of the population, lived far below the poverty line, subsisting on per capita incomes of $500, compared to $18,482 for their white counterparts. Few met the educational and income levels required to obtain the vote.
Largely unnoticed by the world at large, this small colony on the periphery moved to the center of the world stage on November 11, 1965, when Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith announced a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI). The declaration severed the colony’s ties to the UK without the requisite authorization from the British parliament. In the eyes of the world’s great powers, who had also been colonizers and empire builders, Smith’s regime was therefore deemed illegal. Newly independent African and Asian states also claimed that the regime was illegitimate—but because it came to power on a platform dedicated to retaining power in white hands.
The Rhodesian move put the UK in a quandary. The territory’s declaration of independence came amid widespread decolonization on the African continent. Mass movements for political independence grew stronger after World War II, when African troops were drafted into the British army and African farmers were compelled to feed the imperial army and motherland. By the mid-1960s, the UK had been forced to grant independence to most of its African colonies based on the principle of majority rule.
Many of the new African states were deeply influenced by the resolutions passed at the 1955 Bandung Conference of Asian and African States. Participants had resolved to oppose colonialism and imperialism and to promote economic and cultural cooperation throughout the Global South (then called the “Third World”). They voiced particular support for decolonization and national liberation in Africa.
Knowing that new African members of the UN and the Commonwealth would never recognize Rhodesian-style independence, Britain denounced Rhodesia’s illegal action and refused to recognize its independence until it showed a willingness to move toward majority rule. Composed of the UK and its former colonies, the Commonwealth was a potent symbol of the UK’s gloried past. Weakened by World War II and desperate to keep the Commonwealth together, it was forced to make concessions to African members. African nations demanded an even stronger response to the Rhodesian regime. Rallying under the slogan, “No Independence Before Majority Rule,” many threatened to leave the Commonwealth if London failed to impose majority rule as a precondition for Rhodesian independence.
The US faced a similar quandary. Washington feared that if it failed to oppose the rebel regime, it might drive newly independent African states away from its own orbit and towards the communist powers. Moreover, coming at the height of the US civil rights movement, Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence required a race-sensitive response. However, many in the US government were sympathetic to Rhodesian whites. The US was also hampered by other concerns. It had strong ties to Portugal, a NATO member that furnished the US with critical Cold War services, and apartheid South Africa, where it had significant economic interests. Both countries provided life-saving assistance to the outlaw regime.
Faced with conflicting demands, Washington devised a two-pronged strategy. It would publicly support majority rule and denounce the breakaway state but privately engage in actions that prolonged its life—and protected both Portugal and South Africa. When UN sanctions were imposed, the US, like many other Western powers, turned a blind eye while its businesses engaged in sanctions busting.
Although the UK was sympathetic to Rhodesian whites, many of whom had emigrated from Britain after World War II, it was cognizant of African sentiment and refused to recognize the renegade state. However, it quickly undermined its public display of opposition. Describing the Rhodesian outlaws as British “kith and kin,” London declared that it would not use force to bring Rhodesia back to legality and opposed all-out economic warfare. Instead, it proposed a limited set of economic sanctions, the purpose of which was not to bring the rogue prime minister to his knees, but to make him “reasonable.” It urged the international community to do likewise.
At London’s behest, the UN Security Council followed Britain’s lead, enacting selective voluntary sanctions in April 1966 that discouraged the sale of petroleum products to Rhodesia. In December of the same year, it added selective mandatory sanctions that blocked the import of an array of Rhodesian products including sugar, tobacco, and strategic minerals, and the export to Rhodesia of oil, arms, and military equipment. It was not until May 1968 that the Security Council imposed comprehensive mandatory sanctions, prohibiting any economic or diplomatic relationship with the rebel state.
The US was aware that the selective mandatory sanctions imposed on Rhodesia after UDI were being only “loosely observed.” Although opposed to the imposition of comprehensive mandatory sanctions, the UK and the US agreed to discuss those propositions in order to deflect “more radical measures” advocated by African and Asian members of the UN General Assembly. These measures included the use of force against the Smith regime and the extension of economic sanctions to Portugal and South Africa, where the Western powers had significant economic and military interests. Although closing the sanctions loopholes and using force to bring Rhodesia into compliance were their preferred options, African and Asian states considered the imposition of comprehensive mandatory sanctions in May 1968 a victory.
In October 1968, Africans and Asians in the General Assembly again introduced a proposal that called for the use of force. London warned its allies that it would veto the proposal, noting “that continued abstention by Western states would only serve to encourage further pressures and extreme demands from militant Afo-Asians.” The United States followed Britain’s lead and voted against the resolution.
The lag time of more than two years before comprehensive mandatory sanctions were imposed gave Rhodesia time to restructure its economy, develop new markets, and devise sophisticated means of selling its products clandestinely. It found willing partners on several continents. Some UN member states openly flouted the sanctions resolutions. Apartheid South Africa and the Portuguese colonial regime in Mozambique served as conduits for Rhodesian imports and exports. They ignored the UN call for a boycott of Rhodesian goods—helping the outlaw state sell its products and supplying it with petroleum, military equipment, and foreign exchange.
Subsequent events shredded even the facade of US support for majority rule. In 1971, Congress passed the Byrd Amendment to the Military Procurement Authorization Act, which allowed the importation of “strategic and critical” materials from Rhodesia, including chrome and 21 other minerals, so long as there was no similar ban on such imports from communist countries. A Rhodesia lobby, supported by pro-segregation southerners in the US Congress and a number of US businesses, had pushed hard for the amendment.
This loophole added years to the life of the white-ruled state by providing it with the foreign currency needed to buy weapons and petroleum on the black market. The Western powers’ refusal to hold Rhodesia to account culminated in a 14-year war between Africans fighting for liberation and the Rhodesian security forces—a conflict that cost some 20,000 lives. Even with outside support, Rhodesia was in dire straits. By the late 1970s, the war, a worldwide recession, and the toll of sanctions forced Rhodesia to the bargaining table. In 1979, the rebel regime was compelled to accept a settlement that eventually led to majority rule.
The parallels between Rhodesia over a half-century ago and the US today are troubling. In both Rhodesia and the US, extremist politicians have rejected the basic tenets of democracy and majority rule and manipulated working-class whites, frightening them with rumors of replacement by non-white populations. In 2024, the US is faced with another constituency of whites who feel threatened by the advancement of US-born racial and ethnic minorities and immigrants from the Global South. Some have openly embraced Rhodesia as a model for preserving minority rule. In both cases, extremist political and business leaders have aligned with anti-democratic forces that do their dirty work. The blind support of this constituency continues to be vital to the success of the regimes’ ultimate objective: protecting the interests of wealthy white populations in business and industry.
The case of Rhodesia also has much to teach us about how self-proclaimed critics of a renegade regime professed to support human rights, democracy, and respect for the rule of law, but in fact prioritized their self-interest and prolonged the regime’s life, which ultimately led to civil war. As the 2024 elections approach, die-hard supporters of the extremist minority will not be swayed by evidence. But perhaps lessons from Rhodesia can sway the fence-sitters.
Elizabeth Schmidt is professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland and vice president of the African Studies Association. She has written six books about Africa, covering U.S. involvement in apartheid South Africa, women under colonialism in Zimbabwe, the nationalist movement in Guinea, and foreign intervention in Africa from the Cold War to the war on terror.
Africa Is a Country is a site of opinion, analysis, and new writing on and from the African left. It was founded by Sean Jacobs in 2009. Unless otherwise noted, all the content on Africa Is a Country is published under a Creative Commons BY 4.0 license.
