A Diamond Or A Dollar
When the moderate African leader in Rhodesia realistically offers his people a dollar they do not take much notice of him, for the extremist African leader is offering them a diamond. Promising the Africans everything is a prime source of the extremist' power, but there are other sources. The rising tide of African nationalism is one. Another is the fact that the majority of the Africans in Rhodesia are relatively poor in relation to the Europeans. An extremist can often convince Africans that they have everything to gain and nothing to lose by an immediate take-over of the government.
The extremist is usually more prepared to fight for his ideas and has more energy than the moderate African who is living contentedly with his family and doing his daily work. The extremist is organized. When he calls a strike, and a moderate worker disobeys him, the worker is often beaten up. This can occur when the worker returns from work, or on his way to work, or even in his home. After such treatment, he soon learns to obey the extremist.
This African extremism has increased the fears of the European extremists. When I was home this summer one of them said to me, "If we allow the Africans to take over the government there will be chaos. Look what happened a few years ago in the Harari African township when the two rival African parties declared a virtual war on each other and started burning each other's huts down. If the European law had not stepped in the total African population may have become involved. How can we let these people govern our country?"
The final tragedy is that world pressure has crippled the white Rhodesian moderate. Those few citizens who still bother to openly criticize the government are practically powerless. Most others have given up trying or have begun to feel that while their country is being threatened by hostile forces from without, it would be tantamount to treason to voice an opinion against the government. Whereas just this summer I heard a Rhodesian lady say, "If I was an African, I would be right in the very front line fighting," now there is nearly complete white solidarity behind the government.
An African Friend
Although I consider myself to be a moderate and have tried to be as objective as possible in this article, I admit that I am emotionally involved in this particular area because I am a Rhodesian by birth. The best hope I can see for the future is that my generation may turn out to be more enlightened than that of my elders. They saw the African in his primitive state when they first settled in Rhodesia and cannot quite conceive of him now as ruling the country. An example of this was my sister's bringing an African girl friend from school home for the weekend, to the utter astonishment of my parents.