Welcome back, and thanks for reading! Now that I’m done with the series on the White Rajahs of Sarawak (click to read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV), I’ll be getting back to some of my more usual content.
While I have now written a great deal on the Rhodesian story—from how Carter1 and the CIA2 justified murdering it to how its destruction is a crystal ball for the path South Africa is now on3—an aspect of the story I would like to explain more satisfactorily is the one that many people ask about: how is the history of that landlocked country in Southern Africa relevant to Americans?
To some extent, the similarities are obvious. It was a country steeped in Anglo-Saxon tradition—not unlike the American colonies and early Republic—4that was murdered by the same sorts of people behind the race communist mindset5 that is destroying America.6 It is no real surprise that we got the civilization-killing disparate impact ideology7 inflicted upon us in America around the same time that our rulers killed Rhodesia. Further, America’s politicians call for race-based “reparations”8 and grants9 not unlike the Zimbawean land expropriation,10 so it’s not hard to see where those blue zones are headed.
But it is deeper than that. Everyone with a brain knows “Zohrab Mamdani” would be a disaster for NYC; Rhodesian history isn’t needed to explain it. Similarly, residents of everywhere from Baltimore to St. Louis, Memphis to Detroit can tell you why their cities are a mess. South African and Rhodesian history helps put this race communism in context and show where it might be headed,11 but we have plenty of (less aesthetically interesting) examples of that already, many of them from close to home.
The real reason that Rhodesia matters for Americans is that the spiritual problem presented is one that we very much need to answer, for the same forces that destroyed it are destroying us. It, better than any other historical case study, shows how much the Western mindset shifted and how much the one now prevalent in America is at odds with our history, tradition, and culture.
The basic problem is this: Is it human flourishing that matters, or commitment to a vague idea of total equality enforced by the state, whatever the consequences?