Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: Mount Athos
Before it was Rhodesia it was called Southern Rhodesia. Northern Rhodesia was later renamed Zambia.

I think some Rhodesian whites stayed in the country because they were too destitute to be able to travel to another country.

55 posted on 03/14/2020 3:01:12 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies ]


To: Verginius Rufus

[I think some Rhodesian whites stayed in the country because they were too destitute to be able to travel to another country.]


For anyone with even British middle class assets, such as Ian Smith, former PM before Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, life there is very different from what faces him in the British Isles. And in many ways, the UK is a foreign land to whites who have been in Africa for generations:

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/out-of-africa/
[In returning to England, he accepted a much-reduced standard of living. Talleyrand said that he who had not experienced the ancien régime (as an aristocrat, of course) knew nothing of the sweetness of life. The same might be said of him who had not experienced life as a colonial in Africa. I, whose salary was by other standards small, lived at a level that I have scarcely equaled since. It is true that Rhodesia lacked many consumer goods at that time, due to economic sanctions, but what I learned from this lack is how little consumer goods add to the quality of life.

The real luxuries were space and beauty—and the time to enjoy them. With three doctors, I rented an elegant colonial house set in beautiful grounds tended by a garden “boy” called Moses (the “boy” in garden boy or houseboy implied no youth: once, in East Africa, I was served by a houseboy who was 94, who had lived in the same family for 70 years, and who would have seen the suggestion of retirement as insulting). Surrounding the house was a flagstone veranda where breakfast was served on linen in the cool of the morning, the soft light of the sunrise spreading through the foliage of the jacaranda trees; even the harsh cry of the go-away bird seemed grateful on the ear. It was the only time in my life when I have arisen from bed without a tinge of regret.

I have never worked harder, and I can still conjure up the heavy feeling in my head, as if it were full of lead shot and could snap off my neck under its own weight. The luxury of our life was this: that, our work once done, we never had to perform a single chore for ourselves. The rest of our time, in our most beautiful surroundings, was given over to friendship, sport, study, hunting—whatever we wished. Of course, our leisure rested upon a pyramid of startling inequality and social difference. The staff who freed us of life’s inconveniences lived an existence that was opaque to us, though they had quarters only a few yards from where we lived. Their hopes, wishes, fears, and aspirations were not ours; their beliefs, tastes, and customs were alien to us.

Our very distance made our relations with them unproblematic. We studiously avoided that tone of spoiled and bored querulousness for which colonials were infamous. We never resorted to that staple of colonial conversation, the servant problem, but were properly grateful. Like most of the people I met in Rhodesia, we tried to treat our staff well. In return, they treated us with genuine solicitude. We assuaged our consciences by telling ourselves what was no doubt true—that they would be worse off without our employ—but we couldn’t help feeling uneasy.]


79 posted on 03/14/2020 8:25:22 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (My dad had a Delta 88. That was a car. It was like driving your living room.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 55 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson