Unpopular Sovereignty: Rhodesian Independence and African Decolonization

360 Pages·2015·1.707 MB·English

by  Luise White

Unpopular
Sovereignty

Unpopular
Sovereignty
Rhodesian Independence
and African Decolonization
Luise White
The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London
Luise white is professor of history at the University of Florida. She
is the author of four books, including The Comforts of Home: Prostitution
in Colonial Nairobi, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2015 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2015.
Printed in the United States of America
24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 23505- 9 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 23519- 6 (paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 23522- 6 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226235226.001.0001
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
White, Luise, author.
Unpopular sovereignty : Rhodesian independence and African
decolonization / Luise White.
pages ; cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-226-23505-9 (cloth : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0-226-23519-6
(pbk. : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-0226-23522-6 (e-book) 1. Zimbabwe—
History—1965–1980. 2. Zimbabwe—History—Autonomy and
independence movements. 3. Decolonization—Zimbabwe.
4. Zimbabwe—History—1890–1965. I. Title.
DT2981.W45 2015
968.91'04—dc23
2014030670
a This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1 992
(Permanence of Paper).
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
A Note on Sources xi
Place Names, Party Names, Abbreviations, and Currency xiii
1 “T he last good white man left”: Rhodesia, Rhonasia, and
the Decolonization of British Africa 1
2 “R acial representation of the worst type”: The 1957
Franchise Commission, Citizenship, and the Problem
of Polygyny 37
3 “E uropean opinion and African capacities”: The Life and
Times of the 1961 Constitution 68
4 “A rebellion by a population the size of Portsmouth”: The
Status of Rhodesia’s Independence, 1965– 1969 105
5 “A James Bond would be truly at home”: Sanctions and
Sanctions Busters 126
6 “P olitics as we know the term”: Tribes, Chiefs, and the
1969 Constitution 149
7 “O ther people’s sons”: Conscription, Citizenship, and
Families, 1970– 1980 177
8 “W hy come now and ask us for our opinion?”: The 1972
Pearce Commission and the African National Council 206
9 “Y our vote means peace”: The Making and Unmaking of
the Internal Settlement, 1975– 1979 233
10 “L ancaster House was redundant”: Constitutions, Citizens,
and the Frontline Presidents 255
Contents
11 “A dequate and acceptable”: The 1980 Election and the Idea
of Decolonization 277
12 “P eople such as ourselves”: Rhodesia, Rhonasia, and the
History of Zimbabwe 308
Bibliography 315 Index 335
vi
Acknowledgments
I first went to Zimbabwe with a project in medical history,
but even as I prepared to do that research I found myself
drawn to the sheer amount of white writing— memoirs and
novels and polemics— written about Rhodesia’s renegade
independence during it and after Rhodesia ceased to exist.
As the medical history project became increasingly un-
tenable, I thought I would write a book about Rhodesian
independence based on these published materials. What
made me think more critically about what such a project
might entail and what I might find in archives and librar-
ies were the conversations I had when I was a fellow at
the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
in 1997–1998. James Hevia, Douglas Howland, and David
Gilmartin demonstrated by example the imaginative po-
tential of political history. This encounter with scholars of
East and South Asia convinced me that what was at stake
in this project could not be expressed in the binary of pub-
lished versus unpublished or even primary versus second-
ary sources. Doug Howland in particular encouraged me
to rethink how I read texts and also to attend to the ge-
nealogies of language in which the historical experience
of power and privilege was recorded. For the next decade,
however, I imagined I could write a history of Rhodesian
independence without addressing the complications of the
five constitutions Rhodesia had between 1961 and 1980. I
had hoped to write a book without learning the minutiae
of voter qualifications, the question of dual voters’ rolls,
and the byzantine rules for cross- voting. At the Shelby
Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton
vii
ACknoWLedgments
University in 2007 I had the time and the library resources to read fran-
chise commissions and constitutions. To my surprise I discovered that
the minutiae of voter qualifications were a way to talk about history
and difference at the end of the colonial era; separate voters’ rolls for
Africans and Europeans were a late colonial fiction about ending racial
politics; cross- voting was a territorial mechanism for keeping racial poli-
tics buoyant. The organization of this book emerged out of that fellow-
ship, and I am grateful to Michael Gordin and Gyan Prakash for their
support.
I was able to explore the overlapping histories of states and votes and
voters in three conferences. The Center for Twenty-F irst Century Studies
at the University of Wisconsin–M ilwaukee funded Doug Howland and
me to organize a conference historicizing sovereignty. At the University
of Florida, the Center for the Humanities and Public Sphere funded
two workshops, one on decolonization and the franchise and one co-
organized with my colleague Alioune Sow on the production of mem-
oirs in Africa since 1980. I am grateful to the participants for their
papers and discussion. This research was funded by the Social Science
Research Council, the Wenner- Gren Foundation for Anthropological
Research, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the
National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Shelby Cullom Davis
Center for Historical Studies. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation allowed me the time to write this book. Such a list masks
the colleagues who have, time after time, written the letters that recom-
mended me for funding. Over many years and no small amount of disk
space, Fred Cooper and Ivan Karp have supported me and my research
in ways I can only call unfailing. Ivan did not live to see this book. He
never really approved of this project, but his belief that a scholar’s en-
gagement could trump his own sensibilities has served as an example of
uncompromising professionalism and is one of the many reasons he is
so sorely missed.
This book was written at the University of Florida, where the
Department of History has supported my work and helped me secure
funds for research from the College of Liberal Arts for research trips. At
Florida I am affiliated with a Title VI Center for African Studies. Title
VI centers are relics of the Cold War, to be sure, but like relics of old
they have been given a special and somewhat different meaning by the
people who revere them. At Florida this has meant a sense of place and
possible futures for Africa shared by a truly interdisciplinary group of
scholars. The center’s directors and associate director—M ichael Chege,
Abe Goldman, Todd Leedy, and especially Leonardo Villalón— have
viii
ACknoWLedgments
been only too eager to turn scholars’ ideas into research trips and confer-
ences and invited speakers. Steve Davis began graduate work in African
history at Florida in 2003, when I had just begun to think seriously
about this book. He finished his dissertation years before I finished this
manuscript, but not before I learned an enormous amount from him.
Writing about the history of a state that no longer exists has required
a triangulation of archives and libraries. I have been helped along this
circuitous path by Ivan Murambiwa at the National Archives of Zim-
babwe, Shirley Kabwato at the Cory Library at Rhodes University, John
Pinfold at Rhodes House in Oxford, Hilary McEwan at the Common-
wealth Secretariat in London, Chris Webb at the Borthwick Historical
Institute in York, Marja Hinfelaar at the National Archives of Zambia,
and Kelebogile Pinkie at the Botswana National Archives. In the United
States I am grateful for the assistance of Jennifer Cuttleback at the LBJ
Archives in Austin, William McNitt at the Gerald Ford Library in Ann
Arbor, Carol Leaderham at the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford
University, David Easterbrook at Northwestern University, Dorothy
Woodson of the Sterling Library at Yale University, and most of all, Dan
Reboussin at the University of Florida.
My research outside the United States would not have been pos-
sible without the friendship and hospitality of Irene Staunton and
Murray McCarthy in Harare, Helen and Robert Irwin in London, Judy
Butterman and Roger Tangri in Gaborone, Megan Vaughan in Oxford,
Diana Jeater in Wick, Bill Freund in Durban, and Isabel Hofmeyr, Jon
Hyslop, and David Moore in Johannesburg. Colleagues, journalists, for-
mer Commonwealth officials and Rhodesian officials in Zimbabwe, and
those in what Zimbabweans call “the diaspora” have been exceptionally
generous with their time and insight. Many asked not to be cited by
name, and so I refer to these conversations as my field notes. I want to
thank the named and unnamed— friends and informants and partici-
pants in various seminars in various countries—f or their comments and
suggestions.
At the University of Chicago Press David Brent was enthusiastic
about this book before it was done. Once it was, his respect for an au-
thor’s voice matched his regard for an author’s need to attend to time-
tables. I am grateful to him, Priya Nelson, and Ellen Kladky for guiding
me through editorial processes and procedures with wondrous speed
and good will and for making sure this book could be available in Africa.
Jocelyn Alexander, Josiah Brownell, Elizabeth Dale, Abdoulaye Kane,
Robert McMahon, Pius Nyambara, and Leonard V. Smith read indi-
vidual chapters for me. Steve Davis, David Gilmartin, Doug Howland
ix