Going Home - Doris May Lessing [118]
Meanwhile the Acts of Parliament were passed, the Land Apportionment Act proliferated and in every way Southern Rhodesia became like the Union of South Africa, which place the whites of Southern Rhodesia despised because it wasn’t British. To understand the background of this particular bit of emotionalism, it is necessary to remember that Rhodesia came into existence as a flight away from South Africa, as a British colony, conquered by and for the British.
And the Africans? Well, the Africans were sitting around complaining that they had been betrayed and sold out, and why wasn’t Whitehall protecting them as promised. So there were the whites, on their town and farm verandahs, complaining about interference from Fabians and Reds, and the blacks complaining that there wasn’t any.
When I became involved in African politics—not much of them before the nationalist movements developed—one sat hour after hour in smoky little rooms listening to black men who possess, until it turns sour, an innocent faith in honour and decency which is truly appalling, because of the bitter harvest it must grow, while they said: ‘When our friends and brothers in England learn how we are being treated they will see justice done.’
Ridiculous. Absurd. Painful—because, of course, no one in Britain cared a damn.
No one. It was in the ’fifties that I was attending, in the basement of the House of Commons, a meeting of one of those ginger-group organizations dedicated to aiding the colonies. When Southern Rhodesia was reached on a long agenda which included at least two dozen embattled colonies and expossessions, the chairman noted certain unsatisfactory conditions—and went on. On an enquiry why, it transpired that these people, members of that tiny minority in Britain who cared at all about Britain’s responsibilities abroad, did not know about that entrenched clause in the Constitution of 1924, and that at any time since 1924 what was going on in Southern Rhodesia could have been challenged legally and effectively, from Britain.
It was not until the ’fifties that any section of British opinion took an interest in Rhodesia, let alone any action. And by that time action could not have been effective.
There is a right time to do things. If an action is not taken at the right time, it doesn’t work. That is why this UDI business seemed so unreal. It was unreal.
From the Rhodesian side, it was nothing more than a confirmation of something already existing. For Britain suddenly to take moral stands on issues that she had ignored totally for decades was unreal, absurd. She had allowed Federation—against the wishes of the Africans; blessed Partnership; imprisoned and harried the Africans now governing Zambia. Why, suddenly, in the ’sixties, be shocked and outraged by a society she had always condoned? Why the language of moral indignation about legislation she had had the right to veto but had never protested about—or, for that matter, had noticed. Whose responsibility was the slave state of Rhodesia? Why, Britain’s—no one else’s.
UDI was final crystallization of the ‘we won’t have interference from Britain’ attitude. All through my childhood I heard them joking: ‘What are they going to do then—send gunboats on to the Zambezi?’ Quite so. At last, at long last—and how very satisfying to these naughty children—a real interference, a real threat, even though a muted one, from those Fabians and Reds in Britain. How satisfying—even if so late. It was during the UDI crisis I got a letter from a friend saying: ‘We are not prepared to be pushed around by Britain.’ The point is, he was speaking out of a 40-year-old myth.
I tell you, if Wilson had landed troops in Rhodesia, the entire white population would have picked up its rifles and revolvers and taken to the hills—delighted. Absolutely thrilled. I think Wilson was right not to land troops. I would be surprised if he took the decision for the right reasons, but I’ve a feeling