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115 4 Social and Economic Developments during the UDI Period Joseph Mtisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya and Teresa Barnes Introduction The trajectory of events in Zimbabwe’s history between 1965 and 1980 differed from that of most countries in Africa in a number of ways. Whereas a number of them attained their independence in the 1950s and 1960s, developments in Southern Rhodesia took a different turn. While Britain claimed she was committed to the attainment of black majority rule, white Rhodesians were determined to safeguard their economic and political privileges and move towards consolidating Southern Rhodesia as a ‘white man’s country’. To this end, ‘one of the most centrally controlled capitalist economies in the world’ was created,1 which Herbst aptly describes as ‘Socialism-for-the-Whites’.2 For their part, Africans sought to gain independence, as was the case in many other countries. These conflicting visions of the future led to a complex, and often violent, power struggle as various forces sought to define and redefine the political, social and economic boundaries of the desired nation. This chapter attempts to unravel these complex struggles and discuss how they found expression in the various spheres of Rhodesian life during the period following UDI in 1965. Background As has been shown in the previous chapter, the years after the Second World War were marked by an upsurge of African nationalism throughout the continent.3 This expressed itself in increased confrontation with the state, mainly through industrial action, and a proliferation of organised political parties that challenged colonial rule. Southern Rhodesia was not spared these developments. The 1945 1 E. S. Pangeti. ‘The State and the Manufacturing Industry: A Study of the State as Regulator and Entrepreneur in Zimbabwe, 1930-1990’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Zimbabwe, 1995), p. 117. 2 J. Herbst, State Politics in Zimbabwe (Harare: University of Zimbabwe Publications, 1990), p. 22. 3 For a detailed study of the Africa-wide process of decolonisation, see R. W. M. Louis, Decolonization and African Independence: The Transfers of Power, 1960-1980 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988). 116 Joseph Mtisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya and Teresa Barnes Railway Workers Strike and the 1948 General Strike,4 whose magnitude and organisation were unprecedented in the colony, exemplify this confrontation. Michael West observed that ‘although a sense of African nationhood began to take hold among Africans in Southern Rhodesia between 1945 and 1948, this nation was not imagined as a sovereign and independent entity’.5 The focus of political agitation in the immediate post-war period was directed at European misrule rather than at removing it altogether. However, ‘by the early 1960s the black elite, as a social category, had moved to an African nationalist stance, with its leadership demanding transfer of political power from the white minority to the African majority’.6 Although the idea of racial partnership had been put forward in order to push for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1953, in reality very little had changed in terms of the political and economic status of the Africans. Despite the efforts to achieve some degree of African advancement, developments since 1953 confirmed Huggins’s description of the Federation as the relationship ‘between the horse and the rider’.7 From the late 1950s, it became apparent to the Africans that their interests were not going to be addressed through the Federal arrangement. Their reaction is succinctly captured in the declaration by Michael Mawema, president of the National Democratic Party (NDP), that ‘the [colonial] Government [is] wasting time “on small things”, instead, we feel we should get control of the Government itself’.8 Africans in Southern Rhodesia thus turned increasingly to confrontation with the colonial authorities in the tumultuous 1960s. Urban areas such as Harare and Bulawayo were rocked by the ‘Zhii Riots’ in July 1961, in which 18 people were killed by police.9 Inspired by nationalist sentiment as well as by their opposition 4 See L. W. Ndlovu, ‘The 1945 African Railway Strike’ (BA(Hons) dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, 1983); B. M. Zulu, ‘The History of Railway African Workers Union’ (BA(Hons) dissertation , 1985); Shi Xiuchun, ‘1948 Strike in Salisbury and Bulawayo’ (BA(Hons) dissertation, University of Zimbabwe, 1986). 5 M. West, The Rise of an African Middle Class: Colonial Zimbabwe, 1898-1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), p. 168. 6 Ibid., p. 203. 7 T. R. M. Creighton, The Anatomy of Partnership: Southern Rhodesia and the Central African Federation (London: Faber, 1960). 8 Quoted in A...

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