THE "LAST RHODESIAN" AND THE FIRST

Ian Smith

by Colin Liddell

The Charleston Church killer, Dylann Storm Roof, set up the blog The Last Rhodesian. It was on this site that his “manifesto” appeared, as well as some of the images that have since been splashed across the media. The first photograph that appeared in the aftermath of the massacre showed him wearing a jacket with the flag of Apartheid South Africa and the White-ruled state of Rhodesia, which survived from 1965 to 1979.

Rhodesia, it seems, was important to him.

Or was it? The manifesto doesn’t actually mention Rhodesia, although there is a reference to South Africa:

"Some people feel as though the South is beyond saving, that we have too many blacks here. To this I say look at history. The South had a higher ratio of blacks when we were holding them as slaves. Look at South Africa, and how such a small minority held the black in apartheid for years and years. Speaking of South Africa, if anyone thinks that think will eventually just change for the better, consider how in South Africa they have affirmative action for the black population that makes up 80 percent of the population."

A simple point like this could also be driven home by mentioning the few thousand White men who at one time ruled over the teeming millions of India. As for Rhodesia, I doubt that Roof would be at all capable of understanding the complexities of what was in fact a very liberal and progressive state (by which I also mean a self-destuctive state). If he had understood Rhodesia better, I doubt someone of his supposed beliefs would have been keen to have its flag on his jacket. Here is Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith from a televised speech delivered on 20 March 1976:

"I have said before, and I repeat, we are prepared to bring black people into our Government to work with us. I think we have got to accept that in the future Rhodesia is a country for black and white, not white as opposed to black and vice versa. I believe this is wrong thinking for Rhodesia. We have got to try to get people to change their line of thinking if they are still thinking like that. This is outdated in Rhodesia today. I don't believe in majority rule ever in Rhodesia, not in 1,000 years. I repeat that I believe in blacks and whites working together. If one day it is white and the next day black I believe we have failed and it will be a disaster for Rhodesia."

Smith's point was never about excluding Blacks from government, but in allowing them to participate to the extent of their capability to do so. The White Man's Burden was to involve carrying them through the schoolhouses and up the stairs of the Rhodesian Parliament, and then stepping a little to the side once they were able to do a rough imitation of their colonial masters. And we all know how well that worked out!

Nice tux, shame about everything else.

But back to Roof: the Rhodesian and South African connection evoked by his blog and patches have become interesting in the light of the latest developments in America where there now seems to be a wave of anti-Confederate iconoclasm sweeping the nation – or at least its retail outlets and political class.

Assuming everything is as it seems, the Charleston Church Shooting could most directly have been blamed on racism (hyper racism) and easy access to guns, but as I explained in a couple of articles here and at Counter-Currents, it is impossible to do away with either guns or racism in America. There is an iron law that ensures that the more multicultural a society becomes, the more racist it inevitably becomes. Also, how is banning guns remotely possible at a time when the police are now being ordered to give unruly Black mobs "space to destroy"?

Instead of tackling those two insurmountables, the emotional energy generated by this case, and whipped up by the media, is now being directed against the easier targets of historical symbols, like the Confederate Battle Flag, some of which have been taken down, and statues of Confederate worthies, some of which have been vandalized or sprayed with graffiti.

For those who follow South African news, this will all sound disturbingly familiar. Which brings us from Dyalann Roof, the self-proclaimed “Last Rhodesian,” to the first one, namely Cecil Rhodes, the statesman who created Rhodesia and dominated South African politics around the turn or the 20th century.

Cecil Rhodes: the first Rhodesian.

Back in April a prominent statue of Rhodes was removed from the campus of Cape Town University after a series of protests, in which self-loathing White Leftists played their usual prominent part. The reason that Rhodes’s statue was there in the first place was because he had generously donated the land on which the main campus now stands.

The removal of this statue was accompanied by several other attacks on statues of historical figures. Among those vandalized or defaced were statues of Paul Kruger, the President of Transvaal, South African Prime Minister J.G. Strijdom, Queen Victoria, and even a statue of the Indian leader Gandhi! Likewise in America, the campaign to lower flags and remove statues has been accompanied by similar acts of vandalism.

But let's be clear: taking down the Confederate flag or removing the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest is not about sparing the feelings of African Americans. This is what typical Conservatives naively believe, and this partially explains their tendency to roll over on this issue. Very few Blacks even know the details of the history that Leftists are attempting to eradicate. The disturbing parallels with identical events in South Africa should reveal what the ultimate agenda really is – namely, to reduce Whites to an impotent minority at the mercy of groups who hate them. If anything was ever worth fighting a civil war over, that is clearly it.

First they came for the statues..., etc.

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