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Speaker 1: Also media.

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Speaker 2: Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that

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Speaker 2: This is the part two of our series on Ian Smith,

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Speaker 2: the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, a country made by racists,

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Speaker 2: for racists, and of racists. Here to talk to me

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Speaker 2: about racists. How are you doing?

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Speaker 3: Becca? Love it?

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Speaker 4: I do feel like it is an area of expertise

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Speaker 4: I have as a one of color in America.

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Speaker 5: But you know, what can you do?

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Speaker 2: What can you do? I mean, these are these are like, uh,

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Speaker 2: these are the racists who like trained a lot of

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Speaker 2: the racists who came after. Although they're still standing on

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Speaker 2: the shoulders of great racists like Cecil Roads and the Confederacy.

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Speaker 2: But you know, if they could be more racist, it's

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Speaker 2: only because they stood on the shoulders of racist giants.

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Speaker 5: They learned from the racist before them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I don't know how

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Speaker 2: else to talk about.

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Speaker 4: Loving them, loving their brand of racism. It actually does

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Speaker 4: remind me of Puerto Rico a little bit. Yeah, just

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Speaker 4: in the way that they I'm like, how do I

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Speaker 4: put this? The colonial status of Rhodesia is kind of

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Speaker 4: similar to I feel like the way the United States

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Speaker 4: utilized Puerto Rico where they colonized Puerto Rico and then

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Speaker 4: they called it an unincorporated territory and then they're like no, no,

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Speaker 4: but it's not a colony though, and like if you

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Speaker 4: work really hard, you can maybe become a state and

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Speaker 4: then you know, it's never gonna happen.

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Speaker 2: So denying Puerto Rico any kind of like real autonomy

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Speaker 2: is just the same as the like, well, we don't

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Speaker 2: want their votes to mean more than like white votes.

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Speaker 5: So they don't even have representation.

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Speaker 2: Mm hmm, you just take that away from them basically, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: like it's it is. It is interesting because yeah, the US,

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Speaker 2: the US answer to like what to do with with

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Speaker 2: Puerto Rico was just like let's obscure it a little

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Speaker 2: more than the Rhodesians. We're going to write. Yeah, like

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Speaker 2: but it is always the fundamental issue is always okay,

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Speaker 2: but like, yeah, if we give back power to these

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Speaker 2: people in a democratic system, they're going to vote for

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Speaker 2: stuff that's good for them and maybe not good for

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Speaker 2: like the forty of us who own everything.

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Speaker 4: Exactly and contextually, this is happening similar timelines, you know,

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Speaker 4: like the Jones Act happened early nineteen hundreds, you know,

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Speaker 4: so it's like, at this time in history, globally it

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Speaker 4: is not cool to be a colony, which is where

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Speaker 4: I feel like Rhodesia and Puerto Rico are learning how

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Speaker 4: to navigate their own political systems. While it's not saying colony.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're not saying and that's that is exactly kind

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Speaker 2: of the and both their their kind of mother countries

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Speaker 2: are trying to deal with the same problem. Right, The

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Speaker 2: US and Great Britain are both dealing with the fact

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Speaker 2: that globally it doesn't look good to be pro colonially

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Speaker 2: some in pro colony in this period, but we don't

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Speaker 2: want to give up our stuff entirely, so I mean

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Speaker 2: that's less of the British by this point are kind

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Speaker 2: of accepting we're going to have to give up a

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Speaker 2: lot of our stuff, so it's for them, or how

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Speaker 2: do we avoid like embarrassment, right, how do we avoid

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Speaker 2: being like shamed over like the fact that things are

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Speaker 2: going to fall apart once we leave or whatever. Whereas

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Speaker 2: the US is like, well, what if we just call

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Speaker 2: them a cult? What if we just make up something

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Speaker 2: for them that means they're technically members of the state,

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Speaker 2: but they don't get to like vote in a way

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Speaker 2: that matters right exactly, but it's still like the same

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Speaker 2: fundamental issue is like, well, we want a colony, we

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Speaker 2: can't call it that. How do we make sure these

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Speaker 2: the majority of the people who live in this area

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Speaker 2: don't get to actually make decisions because we want their

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Speaker 2: stuff still yep. So in Central Africa, the first way

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Speaker 2: that this is the white people attempt to maintain their

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Speaker 2: power in the post colonial era is this dream that

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Speaker 2: Ian Smith signs on too, called the Central African Federation

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Speaker 2: or CIF. This was established in nineteen fifty three as

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Speaker 2: a sort of bulwark for British white supremacists in Central Africa.

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Speaker 2: The Federation, as I noted last episode, consisted of Southern

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Speaker 2: Rhodesia than a self governing British colony, and the British

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Speaker 2: protectorates of Northern Rhodesia and nyassaland each territory remained autonomous

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Speaker 2: and subject to a representative of the British Queen's Government,

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Speaker 2: as well as an African Affairs Board, which was meant

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Speaker 2: to protect indigenous people from discriminatory laws. You always had

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Speaker 2: to have that in there, right. This is part of

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Speaker 2: the ploy, that's part of how they want to dress

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Speaker 2: up the CIF is like, and there's this whole board

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Speaker 2: dedicated to making sure we're not mean to the black people. Right,

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Speaker 2: don't you want to give us our independence? Now? Doesn't

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Speaker 2: this sound good? And this is all a show. The

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Speaker 2: board and this fiction of a federation are all meant

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Speaker 2: to exist as long enough as it takes to get

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Speaker 2: the international community in Britain to recognize them as an

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Speaker 2: independent state, at which point they will revert to being

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Speaker 2: what they always were, which is a way for rich

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Speaker 2: white families to get cheap labor. Right now. This whole

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Speaker 2: idea of the Central African Republic was the brainchild of

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Speaker 2: a Northern Rhodesian politician named Roy Wolinski. And Roy realized

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Speaker 2: that the only way to get England to support the

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Speaker 2: independence of a white led Central African state was to

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Speaker 2: dress it up as something other than that.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: And Ulitski himself is a fascinating example of the bizarre

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Speaker 2: racial politics of colonial Central Africa. He was the son

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Speaker 2: of a Lithuanian Jewish refugee and an afrikaaner woman who

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Speaker 2: had been born and he was born into the poor

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Speaker 2: white community of Salisbury. Unlike Ian, he's like a poor

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Speaker 2: Rhodesian right, which white which still aren't like really poor.

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Speaker 2: But it means that he's going to have to work

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Speaker 2: harder as a young man to get places. And it's interesting.

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Speaker 2: It's like, because he's Jewish, when he's younger in the

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Speaker 2: pre World War two days, a bunch of like fascist

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Speaker 2: South Africans to face his office with anti Semitic griff

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Speaker 2: and so he's both has this experience of like being

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Speaker 2: a member of an ethnic minority who has had to

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Speaker 2: escape a genocide and also you're actively trying to create

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Speaker 2: a racial apartheid state. It's a really fascinating position for

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Speaker 2: a man to be in. Well Lisky finds himself in.

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Speaker 2: And Frank Barton, former editor of the Central African Post,

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Speaker 2: later wrote that quote, it is curious that a man

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Speaker 2: who has endured such discrimination should be the main pillar

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Speaker 2: of the discrimination practiced against millions of non whites in

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Speaker 2: the Federation. And it is interesting.

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Speaker 1: Weird we see this, Yeah, this is like a this

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Speaker 1: is like a consistent pattern that we see a lot,

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Speaker 1: not just you know, throughout history, but in modern times

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Speaker 1: as well. I think you can dot the i's across

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Speaker 1: the t's on that one.

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Speaker 2: But uh, yeah, so the whole point of this federation

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Speaker 2: is to convince the British government that they could leave, right,

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Speaker 2: and that if the British government leaves, everything will be okay.

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Speaker 2: We'll have a state. It's not going to be mean

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Speaker 2: to the Africans. No one's going to get angry the

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Speaker 2: British Empire for leaving us in charge. You guys will

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Speaker 2: be fine. This won't be a shame to your country

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Speaker 2: for the rest of time that you left us racists

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Speaker 2: in charge of this part of Africa. Right, you will

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Speaker 2: never regret this, That's what That's the whole idea behind

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Speaker 2: the Central African Federation or is like you don't have

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Speaker 2: to worry leaving all this shit in our hands, will

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Speaker 2: take care of it for you. But London they're not

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Speaker 2: quite willing to take that right. In part, you've got

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Speaker 2: a left in British politics who has for the last

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Speaker 2: several decades been like, we're going to decolonize as soon

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Speaker 2: as we get any power. We're kicking you assholes like out,

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Speaker 2: this is bad. We don't want to do this anymore.

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Speaker 2: And you also, even among the larger chunk of the

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Speaker 2: British government who are not fanatics about decolonization, these guys

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Speaker 2: still are like, well, we don't want to be embarrassed

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Speaker 2: if you turn out to be a bunch of monsters,

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Speaker 2: which we know you're going to be because we know Rhodesians.

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Speaker 2: So we need to have before we'll cut you loose.

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Speaker 2: You need to give us some guarantee that the majority

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Speaker 2: of people who live in the Central African Federation want

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Speaker 2: to be part of the Central African Federation. Right, you

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Speaker 2: need to provide us some evidence that the black majority

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Speaker 2: of the country wants to be a country with you guys, right,

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Speaker 2: And they can't prove that because they don't because they

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Speaker 2: like these people are awful, Like the black people don't

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Speaker 2: want to live under the commands of these assholes who

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Speaker 2: have been ruining their lives for decades now. Right, there's

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Speaker 2: never been any chance of like even getting enough of folks,

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Speaker 2: like tricking them into backing this republic to get the

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Speaker 2: British government on board with anything. And so by nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty the dream is in free fall. You know, after

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Speaker 2: about seven years, it becomes clear to everybody this is

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Speaker 2: never going to take off. They're never going to get

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Speaker 2: the majority of the population to support this idea, and

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Speaker 2: so the British government's never going to support this idea.

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Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty British Prime Minister Harold McMillan gives a

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Speaker 2: speech called the Winds of Change Speech, which is very

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Speaker 2: famous because he's talking about how like Africa is going

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Speaker 2: to change, This massive change is sweeping Africa right now

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Speaker 2: and all of these colonial states are going to be

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Speaker 2: gone soon. That's the Winds of Change speech. And so

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Speaker 2: Harold gives Rhodesia a two year ultimatum and he tells,

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Speaker 2: you know, Wolynsky, basically, you've got two years to get

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Speaker 2: your ducks in a row and come up with some

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Speaker 2: way to convince the international community that the majority of

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Speaker 2: black people living in this territory want to be a

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Speaker 2: part of this federation too, right, And Wolynsky fails. There's

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Speaker 2: never any chance of succeeding in this and so right right,

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Speaker 2: because they don't want to, because these people suck. So

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Speaker 2: by nineteen sixty two, his failure is evident, and the

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Speaker 2: car whatever kind of falls apart as a dream. A

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Speaker 2: big part of why is that there are major black

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Speaker 2: led liberation movements in Nyassaland and Northern Rhodesia by this

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Speaker 2: point in time, and they're big enough that like number one,

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Speaker 2: every time this guy claims no, really they want to

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Speaker 2: be a part of federation, there's like large groups that

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Speaker 2: have international recognition that are like, no, we don't. We're

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Speaker 2: actually like talking for ourselves now and we don't want this.

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Speaker 2: And they've gotten enough for a recognition in nineteen sixty

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Speaker 2: two that Niasland and Northern Rhodesia are obviously about to

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Speaker 2: become independent black led countries, right, And so Southern Rhodesia

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Speaker 2: has just been is now sitting alone. This dream of

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Speaker 2: a federation is dead, and they can kind of see

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Speaker 2: the writing on the wall if the British have backed

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Speaker 2: like black majority led governments in all of the surrounding

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Speaker 2: post colonial states, to us, they're not going to let

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Speaker 2: the white people continue to own everything in Rhodesia before

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Speaker 2: they give it up, right, And this is where we

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Speaker 2: return to our pal Ian Smith, who is smart enough

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Speaker 2: that he can see the writing on the wall. Right,

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Speaker 2: friend of the pod, enemy of the pot. Yeah. So

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Speaker 2: again Smith had been a big backer of Wolinski's Federal

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Speaker 2: Party and in nineteen fifty eight become the chief government

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Speaker 2: whip in Parliament. Because there's like the Federal party in

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Speaker 2: Southern Rhodesia, that is the party that supports this dream

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Speaker 2: of a federation, and Smith is with that until nineteen

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Speaker 2: fifty eight when the Federalists, as part of an attempt

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Speaker 2: to like get black Africans to support the federation, they

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Speaker 2: start pushing this new constitution that guarantees black people a

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Speaker 2: set number of seats in the Rhodesian Parliament, and Smith

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Speaker 2: gets furious at this. His number one issue is there

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Speaker 2: should never be any meaningful degree of political power handed

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Speaker 2: to black Africans in Rhodesia. And so he's like, you

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Speaker 2: guys are just doing this because you think it'll convince

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Speaker 2: the British to make us a dominion. But they're never

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Speaker 2: going to do that. They're never going to give white

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Speaker 2: farmers a free state. And so if we just handing

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Speaker 2: over political power to the black people who live here,

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Speaker 2: is just going to encourage them to rebel against us

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Speaker 2: and make them think they can get even more. So

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Speaker 2: we can't do any of that, and that's when he

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Speaker 2: breaks from the party. He leaves politics for a little

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Speaker 2: while because he's like Smith is, he's he's looking at

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Speaker 2: what's happening in Africa, you know. So he's a monster

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Speaker 2: and a racist, but he's also not blind. You know,

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Speaker 2: in seventy or in sixty two, sixty three, sixty four,

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Speaker 2: Belgium's pulled out of the Congo by this point, and

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Speaker 2: that's gotten really violent. Nyasaland, which is about to become Malawi,

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Speaker 2: has a majority black parliament, and the British government is

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Speaker 2: very clearly as Smith's He's that he's just trying. They're

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Speaker 2: just trying to keep us white farmers from panicking before

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Speaker 2: they abandon us. All they're waiting for is an excuse

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Speaker 2: to kind of carve us up the way they have

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Speaker 2: these other territories, and then once we have no more power,

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Speaker 2: they'll hand things over to the majority population who will

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Speaker 2: take our land from us. Right, So that's what Ian

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Speaker 2: Smith realizes in fifty eight, and he's like Wolinski is

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Speaker 2: incapable of seeing the situation as it is, and so

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Speaker 2: I have to take action. So he leaves the party.

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Speaker 2: He spends a year or two kind of bumming around,

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Speaker 2: and he meets up with the leader of this conservative party,

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Speaker 2: the Dominion Party, a guy named Winston Field, and Winston

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Speaker 2: is sort of he has been gathering all of like

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Speaker 2: the right wing Rhodesians to him, and Smith decides like

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Speaker 2: this is the path forward for the independence like wing

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Speaker 2: of Rhodesian politics, and so he starts a new political

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Speaker 2: party with Winston Field that's specifically white supremacist and that

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Speaker 2: is aimed at creating a new right wing government to

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Speaker 2: take power from the United Federal Party, which was Wolinski's party,

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Speaker 2: and oppose majority ruler decolonization. Right. This new party is

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Speaker 2: called the Rhodesian Front, and this is Winston Field and

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Speaker 2: Ian Smith creating a white supremacist far right political party.

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Speaker 2: That's whole goal and its whole promise to white voters

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Speaker 2: is we will stop change right right. And the reason

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Speaker 2: Front does very well. They sweep the nineteen sixty two

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Speaker 2: elections that December. They're big like motto for like the

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Speaker 2: election campaign they run is vote Rhodesian Front for a

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Speaker 2: white Christmas, and they're it's not the snow in Rhodesia.

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Speaker 2: They're very much talking about for like a white like

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Speaker 2: in the most literal senseport right.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: A Time correspondent covering the sixty two election described the

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Speaker 2: Rhodesian Fronts platform as scarcely distinguishable from the apartheid practiced

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Speaker 2: across the border. In South Africa, and this is a

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Speaker 2: noteworthy change. Rudesia has always been racist, it's always been

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Speaker 2: an apartheid state, but it's also always sought to be

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Speaker 2: different from South Africa and not look as race. They

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Speaker 2: don't want to. They certainly don't want people to see

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Speaker 2: them as as racist as South Africans up until nineteen

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Speaker 2: sixty two. And when the Rhodesian Front takes over and wins,

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Speaker 2: and when Ian Smith's party starts dominating things, that means

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Speaker 2: it becomes like the Norman Rhodesia to be like, no, no,

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Speaker 2: we're like the South Africans, but even more racist. Right, Like,

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Speaker 2: we're explicitly accepting that about ourselves now. We tried to

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Speaker 2: deny it for years and we're no longer doing that.

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Speaker 2: So that's what's happening. There's a good there that Times

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Speaker 2: correspondent that I quoted from earlier. The way he summarizes

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Speaker 2: one of the Rhodesian Front's most popular campaign ads should

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Speaker 2: make it clear what this party is all about. Quote

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Speaker 2: under posters showing the legs of white and black schoolgirls

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Speaker 2: standing side by side. The front blared Rhodesia is not

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Speaker 2: ready for this. That's their big scare. Ad it's like, look,

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Speaker 2: white and black kids at the same school, Like, you

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Speaker 2: know what that Let's let's fight a war to make

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Speaker 2: sure this never has to happen. Like that is The

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Speaker 2: Rhodesian Front's direct promise to voters is you will never

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Speaker 2: have to send your kids to an integrated school. The

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Speaker 2: Front promised to maintain white Rhodesian interests and argued that

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Speaker 2: majority rule would destroy the economy and lead to the

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Speaker 2: creation of a communist regime. Ian Smith's new party had

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Speaker 2: a couple of main catchphrases. When was their promise to

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Speaker 2: preserve civilized standards? He uses that term a lot, and

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Speaker 2: it means white social norms right there, civilized standards. And

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Speaker 2: his other term is responsible government and that means white

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Speaker 2: minority control of the government. Those are Smith's two big

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Speaker 2: talking points. Is we're going to keep white people in church.

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Speaker 3: It basically just made like a year round white Christmas.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, year around white Christmas, Yes, exactly so, because white

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Speaker 2: Rhodesians are by this point out numbered thirteen to one.

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Speaker 2: The Front also encouraged outreach to other white people in

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Speaker 2: Africa and urged them to immigrate to Rhodesia if their

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Speaker 2: own homes had fallen victim to the evils of decolonization. So,

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Speaker 2: if you're a white person in Africa and the colonial

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Speaker 2: government is leaving and there's about to be like a

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Speaker 2: black majority democratic government, Rhodesia's putting up propaganda that says,

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Speaker 2: move here, join the Rhodesian Army. You'll never have to

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Speaker 2: give up power if you stay here. So basically, we're

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Speaker 2: trying to pull in all of the white people in

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Speaker 2: Africa who want things to stay they were the way

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Speaker 2: they were under colonization. Move to Rhodesia. That's their big

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Speaker 2: pr pitch to the of the continent. Now, in their

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Speaker 2: first couple of years in power, the Front has to

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Speaker 2: govern as part of a coalition, right, they're not initially

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Speaker 2: in total power. And I want to quote from an

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Speaker 2: article on history Rise dot com here summarizing this period

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Speaker 2: of time. Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front claim that

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Speaker 2: they based their policies, ideas, and democratic principles on meritocratic

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Speaker 2: ideals and not on color or nationalism, stating that these

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Speaker 2: policies and what he called separate economic advancement would ultimately

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Speaker 2: result in an equal partnership between black and white as

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Speaker 2: an alternative to majority rule. And that's interesting I love

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Speaker 2: how often meritocracy widens up as like a white supremacist

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Speaker 2: talking point of like, oh no, we don't want a

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Speaker 2: white state, we want a meritocracy. And that just means

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Speaker 2: that the best educated people and the richest people should

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Speaker 2: govern things because they've already proven they have the most merit,

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Speaker 2: you know, like that's the again. They just try to

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Speaker 2: be a little more subtle than well, we just don't

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Speaker 2: like black people, right, they have to be a little

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Speaker 2: more subtle than that. So Winstonfield leads the Front for

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Speaker 2: its first two years in power, but he's far too

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Speaker 2: milk toast and moderate to hold on the power for long.

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Speaker 2: You know, he's one of these guys who's Winston. His

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Speaker 2: name is Winston. He just doesn't have a lot of

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Speaker 2: juice to him. And so in April of nineteen sixty four,

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Speaker 2: Ian Smith engineers a change of power between the two

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Speaker 2: and he steps into the role of Prime Minister for

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Speaker 2: what's going to prove to be the rest of Rhodesia's

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Speaker 2: life as a country. And at this point in sixty four,

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Speaker 2: when he takes over as Prime Minister, the Rhodesian Front

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Speaker 2: is the only party that has any power in Rhodesia.

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Speaker 2: Now they've successfully done that, and he's basically a dictator

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Speaker 2: from this point on. He has no real opposition, he's

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Speaker 2: able to the government does whatever Ian Smith wants. It's

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Speaker 2: usually not discussed that way, and he does come to

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Speaker 2: power democratically, but he's a dictator in every way that matters.

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Speaker 2: Nobody's questioning Ian who has power within Rhodesia, right, it's

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Speaker 2: like his and so what's everything that's going to happen.

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Speaker 2: Rhodesha's whole war for independence is entirely based on what

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Speaker 2: Ian Smith wants and thinks is a good idea, and

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Speaker 2: that's really important to keep in mind here. There's almost

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Speaker 2: no one else who's able to like, counter him or

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Speaker 2: push for any other state of affairs in Rhodesian politics.

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Speaker 2: So Smith comes to power with an understanding that under

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Speaker 2: previous negotiations with the Crown, Southern Rhodesia had been promised

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Speaker 2: dominion status when they wanted it. I talked about this

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Speaker 2: last episode, but that wasn't an actual promise that the

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Speaker 2: British government had ever made. Like Rhodesians convinced themselves that

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Speaker 2: that was the promise the British government made, but the

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Speaker 2: British government was like, we never said that. What the

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Speaker 2: fuck are you talking about.

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Speaker 6: You're not obligated to do any verbal non agreement, right right, yeah, and.

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Speaker 3: Get better representatives. This is not you need the lawyer.

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Speaker 2: Well that's what they've gotten Smith. That's at least that's

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Speaker 2: what they think because Smith in sixty four and sixty

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Speaker 2: five there's this big debate between the British Prime Minister,

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Speaker 2: Harold Wilson and Ian Smith over what is going to

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Speaker 2: happen to Rhodesia, and Smith is like, you're supposed you

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Speaker 2: said you'd make us a dominion, so just do it,

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Speaker 2: whereas Wilson argued that like, no, no, no, we agreed

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Speaker 2: we might do something like that if the independent state

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Speaker 2: that we would be creating would be acceptable quote to

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Speaker 2: the people of the country as a whole. And Smith

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Speaker 2: is like, well, everyone I know is fine with Rhodesia

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Speaker 2: being a country, to which Wilson is like, but you

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Speaker 2: only know white people, and like there are at this

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Speaker 2: point African nationalist Rhodesian leaders and they're African nationalist Rhodesian parties,

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Speaker 2: and some of those leaders whore speaking up and being

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Speaker 2: like we like, we actually don't agree with this guy

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Speaker 2: at all, Like, we don't like fuck this dude. So

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Speaker 2: it's very obvious that, like, and it's obvious two British

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Speaker 2: people in London that Smith is full of shit about this, right,

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Speaker 2: and so this is the kind of thing where there

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Speaker 2: there's never this point where the rest of the world

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Speaker 2: plays along. This is purely how Smith and the Rhodesians

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Speaker 2: pretend things are working, but everyone is aware that, like, no,

390
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Speaker 2: you're just gangsters trying to take everything for yourselves. Right.

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Speaker 2: So Wilson's government ultimately settles on a hard stance no

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Speaker 2: independence before majority rule, which for some reason gets then

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Speaker 2: acronym NIBMAR. I don't know why you give an acronym

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Speaker 2: to that, but they're like, no, we can't. That's too

395
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Speaker 2: long to say. We got to have an acronym nib mar. Right,

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Speaker 2: no independence before majority rule, which means we won't let

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Speaker 2: Rhodesia be its own country unless you have an actual

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Speaker 2: democratic government where the majority of people get to vote. Right.

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Speaker 2: And Ian Smith and the rich white farmers he represented

400
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Speaker 2: are really shocked by this, and they're shocked by how

401
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Speaker 2: much mockery they get in mainstream British society. Again, we're

402
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Speaker 2: in the sixties, there's like mainstream there's like main like

403
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Speaker 2: modern media. There's like people are talking about this whole

404
00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:01,560
Speaker 2: debate and they're talking about what Ian Smith is claiming

405
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Speaker 2: and the obvious realities on the ground in Rhodesia that

406
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Speaker 2: are very different, and it becomes sort of like Rhodesians

407
00:22:08,640 --> 00:22:12,680
Speaker 2: become how you in sort of like British political society,

408
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Speaker 2: how you make fun of someone for being like an

409
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Speaker 2: old racist throwback, like that is the Rhodesian in British

410
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Speaker 2: Like it's they're not wrong, right, but that really pisss

411
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Speaker 2: off the roodies. This paragraph from a relevant article in

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Speaker 2: The Independent by Rupert Cornwall gives you an idea of

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Speaker 2: how the Rhodesians are discussed in like popular British society,

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Speaker 2: Old white Rhodesia. The joke ran was a Surrey with

415
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Speaker 2: the lunatic fringe on top. And Surrea is like a

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Speaker 2: suburban part of England, right, so it's like this chunk

417
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Speaker 2: of like British suburbs that's entirely run by the lunatic fringe.

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Speaker 2: To continue with that quote, whether it was lunatic was

419
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Speaker 2: a matter of opinion, but suburban Surrea it did resemble

420
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Speaker 2: in its parochiality. It's golf club outlook on the world.

421
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Speaker 2: It's unquestioning certainty in its own value. The white population

422
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,200
Speaker 2: never exceeded three percent of the total and no more

423
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Speaker 2: than a decent English provincial town, but they believe they

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Speaker 2: had created God's own country. Right. So the idea over

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Speaker 2: in England is these are all a bunch of like

426
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Speaker 2: rich suburban maniacs who don't actually understand anything but like

427
00:23:17,680 --> 00:23:21,200
Speaker 2: playing golf and like games and stuff, but think they've

428
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Speaker 2: created like a perfect country by virtue of the fact

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Speaker 2: that they've got everyone else who lives there working for them.

430
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,199
Speaker 2: And that's accurate. That is in fact what Rhodesia is.

431
00:23:30,240 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 2: And it's very funny that Smith and the other Rhodesians

432
00:23:33,560 --> 00:23:37,120
Speaker 2: have to see this great British world that they love

433
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:41,359
Speaker 2: immediately turn on them and all and it is. It's

434
00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:43,919
Speaker 2: kind of interesting too, because, like all, Smith and his

435
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 2: fellow Roadies are a product of the British world and

436
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:50,360
Speaker 2: its education system and everything it had tried to make

437
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 2: its colonial white citizens into. And it's really funny to

438
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:57,280
Speaker 2: me that in the space of what seems like an afternoon,

439
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:01,479
Speaker 2: this goes from being how the the entire country is

440
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,000
Speaker 2: trying to like encourage its young men to be to Oh,

441
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:07,000
Speaker 2: these people are idiot throwbacks. Look at these dummies. Look

442
00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:09,879
Speaker 2: at these dummies and their old, outdated ideas that like

443
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 2: we were teaching them twenty years ago. But it is

444
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,399
Speaker 2: funny to be How quickly that happens. And the Rhudesian

445
00:24:15,840 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 2: men never get over that. There's this sense of deep

446
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 2: whiplash where they're like, but it was cool to be

447
00:24:21,080 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: a racist really recently. Why are you treating us badly now?

448
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 2: Like they never fully understand why their government has abandoned them,

449
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:33,440
Speaker 2: and it's just because they're obviously a bunch of maniacs. Wow,

450
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 2: good stuff. You know who else is obviously a bunch

451
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 2: of maniacs?

452
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:39,680
Speaker 3: The sponsors of this podcast.

453
00:24:40,119 --> 00:24:49,280
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right, that's right. Let's listen to them

454
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 2: and we're back. So for his part, Smith and his

455
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:57,760
Speaker 2: fellow Salisbury Conservatives reacted like paranoid old fuddy duddies to

456
00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 2: the fact that they're not cool anymore. As Ian Smith

457
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:03,919
Speaker 2: wrote in his autobiography, Within Britain Itself, we were landed

458
00:25:03,920 --> 00:25:06,760
Speaker 2: with a socialist government hell bent on appeasing the cult

459
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 2: of Marxist Leninism. At the expense of the old traditional

460
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:14,359
Speaker 2: values of the British Empire. Very funny bunch of Marxists

461
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:19,840
Speaker 2: in London running everything in fucking nineteen sixty four. It's

462
00:25:19,960 --> 00:25:22,520
Speaker 2: very much like it's there. It's always the way these

463
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:25,120
Speaker 2: people go, right, is like, oh, somebody like, people don't

464
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 2: like us. People have realized that we're like a bunch

465
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 2: of gross race. It must be Marxism, that must That's

466
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 2: the only reason why we're not popular. It's the only

467
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,000
Speaker 2: reason why people don't like me is the Marxists stole

468
00:25:34,040 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 2: their brains. And Smith just absolutely cannot understand why people

469
00:25:40,000 --> 00:25:42,359
Speaker 2: are pissed that as they look at it, this country

470
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,879
Speaker 2: where like three percent of the population owns everything and

471
00:25:45,960 --> 00:25:49,639
Speaker 2: controls everyone else, he sees anyone being angry at this

472
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:54,360
Speaker 2: is just like left wing propaganda now sane, Yeah, it's

473
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 2: and it's it's very If you look at how Rhodesians

474
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,360
Speaker 2: talk about things in Rhodesia during this time, it's very

475
00:26:00,400 --> 00:26:04,040
Speaker 2: normal for white Rhodesians to refer to the black people

476
00:26:04,040 --> 00:26:05,920
Speaker 2: who make up the majority of their country is are

477
00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:10,920
Speaker 2: black people in a way that implies both ownership and paternalism. Right, well,

478
00:26:10,920 --> 00:26:13,360
Speaker 2: these are our people, and so Obviously we take care

479
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,040
Speaker 2: of them. They're like family to us, and one of

480
00:26:16,080 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 2: these days maybe they'll be able to take care of themselves.

481
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:21,840
Speaker 2: We have to raise them up right. And Smith would

482
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:24,760
Speaker 2: be like, and obviously this is better for them. Rhodesia,

483
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:27,760
Speaker 2: Smith says, is home of quote the happiest black faces

484
00:26:27,800 --> 00:26:31,639
Speaker 2: you ever saw, you know, like because they don't have

485
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:34,679
Speaker 2: basic human rights, they're not worried about voting. They can

486
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 2: just enjoy their lives working for us, you know. And

487
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 2: that's very much how Rhodesians talk about things internally, and

488
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,440
Speaker 2: that's how they that's how they attempt to portray themselves

489
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:44,400
Speaker 2: to the outside world.

490
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:47,080
Speaker 5: It's not they rationalize it to themselves as well.

491
00:26:47,119 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly they need this. We're doing good for them, right,

492
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:53,600
Speaker 2: and they have to believe that because what they're actually

493
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:58,280
Speaker 2: doing is incredibly brutal. It's obviously brutal. Once in power,

494
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:02,080
Speaker 2: the Rhodesian Front works feverishly to pass laws denying black

495
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:05,880
Speaker 2: people with little freedom and autonomy they'd previously enjoyed. Smith's

496
00:27:05,880 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 2: party supported the existence of two separate electoral roles. In

497
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,600
Speaker 2: order to qualify to vote or hold office, you had

498
00:27:12,600 --> 00:27:16,320
Speaker 2: to meet certain property income and educational requirements. Now these

499
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 2: are the same requirements for Rhodesians of any race, but

500
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:24,480
Speaker 2: the requirements were deliberately written out to exclude black Rhodesians, right,

501
00:27:24,800 --> 00:27:28,200
Speaker 2: so anyone so crazy, But like, also we built these

502
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,720
Speaker 2: based on like, Okay, how many black people have this

503
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: much property? Is it none of them? Then that's how

504
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 2: much property you got to have to vote, right, Like,

505
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 2: it's very obvious what they're doing. So nineteen sixty three

506
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 2: saw the formal dissolution of the Central African Federation, followed

507
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 2: by months later in nineteen sixty four, Britain granting independence

508
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:50,280
Speaker 2: to Malawi and Zambia, which are like had previously been

509
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 2: part of these like colonial protectorates around Rhodesia. So now

510
00:27:53,600 --> 00:27:58,360
Speaker 2: Rhodesia is surrounded on at least one side by independent

511
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:02,359
Speaker 2: like Democrats countries that are like run by the black

512
00:28:02,440 --> 00:28:05,719
Speaker 2: majority of the population, and then there's just South Africa

513
00:28:05,760 --> 00:28:09,560
Speaker 2: on one side that's like the only white governed state

514
00:28:09,720 --> 00:28:13,359
Speaker 2: still around them. Now, London continues to hold the line

515
00:28:13,400 --> 00:28:17,639
Speaker 2: on Nibmar during independence negotiations, and they also start offering

516
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,640
Speaker 2: buyouts to white members of the Rhodesian armed forces because

517
00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:22,600
Speaker 2: they're just the British armed forces. So part of what

518
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 2: Britain's doing is like, okay, Ian and his guys are

519
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,480
Speaker 2: going to try to delay. How about we just buy

520
00:28:28,520 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 2: out the whole military so that there aren't white people

521
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:34,400
Speaker 2: with guns in Rhodesia anymore, right, And if we can

522
00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 2: do that fast enough, maybe the white Rhodesians who don't

523
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 2: want to give up will just leave afterwards when they realize,

524
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 2: like we've bought the army out from underneath them. But

525
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:47,320
Speaker 2: Smith and his friends, they're not quite that stupid. They

526
00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:50,320
Speaker 2: see what London is doing and they realize they're trying

527
00:28:50,360 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 2: to like take our military and our way to defend

528
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:57,479
Speaker 2: our independence away. And around the same time they can

529
00:28:57,520 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 2: see that these militant African nationalist groups in Rhodesia are

530
00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 2: increasingly organizing and advocating for power, but they're also clashing

531
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 2: for themselves. And there's there's two different main nationalist groups.

532
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,800
Speaker 2: There's ZANU and there's ZAPU, and they're they're both.

533
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 3: Like that, don't call themselves do that shit.

534
00:29:16,920 --> 00:29:21,200
Speaker 2: Everyone needs Everyone needs an acronym for your polinical They don't.

535
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:24,240
Speaker 4: What do they what makes them feel more official if

536
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,600
Speaker 4: they have an acronym that it sounds real.

537
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 3: What did I stand for, Robert Jesus.

538
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:33,440
Speaker 2: ZANU is the Zimbabwe African National Union, right, and ZAPU

539
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 2: is something else, right, but both with Zimbabwe, which is

540
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,040
Speaker 2: the name that Rhodisha's going to have after independence? Right,

541
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 2: this is like the name that the people who had

542
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 2: lived here were already calling it, right, Rhodesia was just

543
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 2: what the white people called it after a racist they

544
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,920
Speaker 2: particularly liked. So sixty three and sixty four you've got

545
00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:55,960
Speaker 2: ZANU and ZAPU, these two different like black independence groups

546
00:29:56,320 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 2: starting out and started to like arm themselves and agitate,

547
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 2: and their initial initially, both Zano and Zoppo are primarily

548
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:07,640
Speaker 2: aimed at and agitating for independence from Great Britain. They're

549
00:30:07,640 --> 00:30:12,840
Speaker 2: not fighting the Rhodesian state initially, right, because they don't

550
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:15,440
Speaker 2: see that as like a big deal. Like their assumption

551
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:17,160
Speaker 2: is that it's going to happen like it happened in

552
00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:19,480
Speaker 2: all of the surrounding countries, where the British will leave

553
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 2: and we'll just kind of roll over these folks when

554
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 2: we win the election. Right. So, in an article for

555
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: Small Wars Journal, William Turner summarizes what happened next the

556
00:30:29,720 --> 00:30:33,640
Speaker 2: internescing struggle with petrol bombs, intimidation, blackmail, and murder lost

557
00:30:33,680 --> 00:30:36,160
Speaker 2: the support of much of the innocent African population who

558
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 2: were dedicated to the nationalists' inns but suffered by their

559
00:30:39,160 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 2: violent means. Neither Zapu or Zanu emerged dominant. And so

560
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 2: because these two different You've got these two different nationalist groups.

561
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 2: They're both opposed to the British Empire, and they're also

562
00:30:49,760 --> 00:30:52,440
Speaker 2: both opposed to each other because they're both like communist

563
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 2: but different kinds. And in early on in sixty three

564
00:30:56,720 --> 00:30:59,640
Speaker 2: sixty four, they're not really fighting Smith's government because they

565
00:30:59,640 --> 00:31:02,040
Speaker 2: don't see it is relevant. So they're kind of murdering

566
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:06,040
Speaker 2: each other, which causes a lot of alienation from like

567
00:31:06,080 --> 00:31:09,560
Speaker 2: the majority of the population. And it creates a situation

568
00:31:09,640 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 2: that if Smith hadn't been so racist and had been

569
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,640
Speaker 2: more intelligent and creative, he could have taken advantage of

570
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:20,080
Speaker 2: You've got these like most motivated and organized chunk of

571
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,840
Speaker 2: the Black population who want independence are in one of

572
00:31:22,880 --> 00:31:25,240
Speaker 2: these two groups, and they're both fighting each other. If

573
00:31:25,280 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 2: I make friends with one of these groups, I can

574
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 2: take advantage of that conflict and have an alliance of

575
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 2: convenience and you know, push for independence, and some sort

576
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,760
Speaker 2: of a state in which we share power. But Smith

577
00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:41,000
Speaker 2: cannot accept sharing power. He cannot accept the idea that

578
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 2: any group of Africans will organize to insist on their

579
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:46,920
Speaker 2: own rights in future. And so even though he has

580
00:31:46,960 --> 00:31:50,200
Speaker 2: a chance to co opt one of these nationalist parties

581
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 2: and destroy the other, he bans both and arrests leaders

582
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 2: of both and forces both out of Rhodesia, which ensures

583
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,440
Speaker 2: that in the future the only forward eye option for

584
00:32:00,480 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 2: their cause is going to be armed resistance, and often

585
00:32:03,880 --> 00:32:06,560
Speaker 2: armed resistance where they're kind of if they're not directly

586
00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:09,880
Speaker 2: working together, they're at least tacitly working together. They will

587
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,160
Speaker 2: fight sometimes too, but Smith kind of ensures that they're

588
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 2: never going to They're going to consider him a threat

589
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 2: before they consider each other a threat. He has the

590
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:22,640
Speaker 2: opportunity to have his enemies fighting each other, and he

591
00:32:22,720 --> 00:32:26,480
Speaker 2: turns them together into fighting against him because he's just

592
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 2: such a bigot. He can't even make use of what

593
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 2: could be a good situation for him. And it's interesting

594
00:32:32,240 --> 00:32:36,240
Speaker 2: because like the British Empire got everywhere by doing that,

595
00:32:36,320 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 2: by being like, okay, we've got these two different local

596
00:32:39,280 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 2: or three different local militant groups fighting each other for power.

597
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: If we back one, then we get to stay in

598
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 2: charge and we eliminate most of the resistance to our regime.

599
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:53,040
Speaker 2: Smith can't even conceive of that because his first principle

600
00:32:53,160 --> 00:32:56,920
Speaker 2: is only white people should have power. Like he can't

601
00:32:56,920 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 2: even do the thing that's best for the white people

602
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 2: in his country because he's such a racist, which I

603
00:33:02,080 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 2: find really interesting. That's like the whole why the Rhodesians

604
00:33:05,560 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 2: lost their war writ large, as they're too racist to

605
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,200
Speaker 2: ever do the smart thing. So he cracks down on

606
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:15,080
Speaker 2: these local groups. He imprisons their leaders, including a guy

607
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,840
Speaker 2: named Robert mcgabe, who will talk about in a little bit.

608
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,360
Speaker 2: And then in November of nineteen sixty five, that's the

609
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,600
Speaker 2: year after he cracks down on these nationalist groups, after

610
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 2: one last fruitless phone call with Harold Wilson, Ian Smith

611
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:32,480
Speaker 2: decides it's time to stop arguing about independence with England.

612
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 2: It's time to just take it. So he gets on

613
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 2: TV and he gives what becomes known as the Universal

614
00:33:37,800 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 2: Declaration of Independence or ud I. And here's how Samantha Power,

615
00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 2: writing for the Atlantic, describes the UDI. The mantle of

616
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 2: the pioneers has fallen on our shoulders. He said, calling

617
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:52,240
Speaker 2: on white Rhodesians to maintain standards in a primitive country.

618
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 2: Smith saw himself as an apostle of Cecil John Rhodes,

619
00:33:55,440 --> 00:33:57,640
Speaker 2: the British magnate who gave Rhodesha his name and who

620
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:00,120
Speaker 2: in the late nineteenth century duped black tribal leaders to

621
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 2: signing over the fertile land to white pioneers. Although Rhodesia

622
00:34:03,280 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty five was home to just over two

623
00:34:05,400 --> 00:34:08,760
Speaker 2: hundred thousand whites and four million blacks, Smith shared Rhodes's

624
00:34:08,760 --> 00:34:11,319
Speaker 2: belief that the black majority rule would occur never in

625
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 2: one thousand years. And that's pretty biting. But Rupert Cornwell,

626
00:34:17,040 --> 00:34:20,400
Speaker 2: who is another historian who wrote an analysis of this declaration,

627
00:34:20,480 --> 00:34:22,759
Speaker 2: gave an even more biting description of it that I

628
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,560
Speaker 2: want to quote from. The UDI proclamation was itself a

629
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:29,920
Speaker 2: parody of the American Declaration of Independence, full of lofty

630
00:34:29,960 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 2: whereases and therefores, but in practice a charter for white rule.

631
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,319
Speaker 2: Each member of the cabinet approved it and signed it

632
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 2: before Smith made a radio broadcast for the nation, telling

633
00:34:39,320 --> 00:34:42,600
Speaker 2: Rhodesians they had refused to surrender to communists in Africa

634
00:34:42,640 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 2: and Asia. We have struck a blow for the preservation

635
00:34:45,160 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: of justice, civilization and Christianity. He declared, right, because if

636
00:34:50,000 --> 00:34:51,560
Speaker 2: we hadn't done this, there would have been an a

637
00:34:51,600 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 2: fair election and communists would have won.

638
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,480
Speaker 3: Sure, pal of course, yeah.

639
00:34:56,600 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 2: It's always communism. And again, like if he had allowed

640
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 2: an election, if there had been an election, there's actually

641
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 2: a very good chance because of how much power the

642
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 2: white Rhodesians had and money they had, that there would

643
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,480
Speaker 2: have been like a coalition government. Because of the war

644
00:35:11,520 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 2: he fights, there is going to be a communist government

645
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 2: in Rhodesia, but it's entirely a product of the fact

646
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 2: that Wilson refuses to negotiate with any of these nationalist groups.

647
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 2: He just murders them and exiles them, which makes them

648
00:35:23,880 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 2: even ever more. Both of these groups that he's kicked

649
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,920
Speaker 2: out get closer and close to the USSR in China

650
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 2: because of what he does, like he creates this thing

651
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 2: that he's terrified of, in large part because he's not

652
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:41,280
Speaker 2: willing to do anything more reasonable. So Rhodesia is now

653
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:44,520
Speaker 2: calling itself an independent country. And once they do this,

654
00:35:44,960 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 2: the government in London has a choice. Because Rhodesha is

655
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 2: a crown colony, it's not legally an independent country, it's

656
00:35:52,280 --> 00:35:55,560
Speaker 2: not been recognized by the UN as one, and so

657
00:35:55,600 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 2: it's effectively all these white people just broke the law,

658
00:35:58,520 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 2: British law, in order to create their own country, in

659
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: order to force a racial caste system on the majority

660
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 2: of the people living there. And so the Prime Minister

661
00:36:07,239 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 2: of the UK has every right to use the Royal Army,

662
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 2: the Royal Air Force and the Royal everything else to

663
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,560
Speaker 2: treat this as an insurrection and return Rhodesia to the

664
00:36:16,600 --> 00:36:20,440
Speaker 2: Fold before dissolving the colony. Right, what Wilson should do,

665
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 2: as the Prime Minister of Great Britain is send in

666
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:26,960
Speaker 2: the military to stop the Rhodesians from stealing the state,

667
00:36:27,360 --> 00:36:31,080
Speaker 2: which is what they're doing. However, that would mean fighting

668
00:36:31,160 --> 00:36:34,279
Speaker 2: a war against a bunch of white people in the sixties,

669
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:37,080
Speaker 2: and no British prime minister is going to agree to

670
00:36:37,120 --> 00:36:41,280
Speaker 2: do that, like you not like not in not in Africa.

671
00:36:41,360 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 2: Maybe in Ireland, right, but not in Africa. So instead

672
00:36:45,640 --> 00:36:49,719
Speaker 2: Wilson reaches for that most beloved tool of lazy statesmen, sanctions.

673
00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,319
Speaker 2: That'll solve it, That'll solve all the problems. I'm gonna

674
00:36:53,320 --> 00:36:57,399
Speaker 2: throw some sanctions on Rhodesia and then we'll just walk away, right,

675
00:36:57,800 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 2: So Wilson announces sanctions upon the former crown property that

676
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,840
Speaker 2: are primarily going after, like tobacco and their other cash crops,

677
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:08,839
Speaker 2: and he predicts that this udi, this independent Rhodesia, will

678
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:11,840
Speaker 2: last weeks or months, and then Smith and his fellows

679
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 2: are gonna come crawling back for help. That's not what happens. Now.

680
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,879
Speaker 2: These first sanctions are pretty you know, they hurt a lot,

681
00:37:18,920 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 2: they're bad for the economy, but they don't bite as

682
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 2: deeply as Wilson hoped. Because South Africa is right there

683
00:37:24,520 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 2: on Rhodesha's border and they hate the Crown. They're happy

684
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:32,560
Speaker 2: to trade with Rhodesia as are Portugal still controls a

685
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:35,120
Speaker 2: whole bunch of Africa and is governed by a fascist,

686
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:38,360
Speaker 2: and fascist Portugal is happy to trade with Rhodesia. So

687
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,120
Speaker 2: initially these sanctions don't hurt too bad because they've got

688
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,719
Speaker 2: allies in their immediate area who are willing to help

689
00:37:44,760 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 2: them get stay propped up. Now, other leaders of newly

690
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 2: independent African states call out London for the cowardice that

691
00:37:51,920 --> 00:37:55,560
Speaker 2: they had displayed in not taking out Rhodesia. President Kunda

692
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,520
Speaker 2: of Zambia said what manner of dealing with such a

693
00:37:58,640 --> 00:38:01,760
Speaker 2: serious problem as this. Today you brand someone as a rebel,

694
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 2: a chap who has committed treason, and tomorrow you declare

695
00:38:04,280 --> 00:38:07,080
Speaker 2: publicly you will embrace him. A rebel according to us

696
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 2: here is arrested, tried by a military court, and shot dead. Right, Like,

697
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:14,319
Speaker 2: these guys are committing treason. Why aren't you punishing them

698
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 2: for their treason? Why are you just like leaving them

699
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:19,640
Speaker 2: to be Africa's problem, which is exactly what London does,

700
00:38:19,800 --> 00:38:22,080
Speaker 2: is like they'll figure it out. Like they'll figure it out.

701
00:38:22,640 --> 00:38:24,680
Speaker 2: We don't have to. It's not on us to do

702
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 2: anything here. It's not on us to fight a war

703
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:30,160
Speaker 2: against what we're our own people who we raised to

704
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:33,440
Speaker 2: be like brutal colonial oppressors, and then just decided we

705
00:38:33,480 --> 00:38:35,960
Speaker 2: didn't want to do that anymore. It's not our responsibility

706
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 2: to clean up. We'll let the Africans handle it. And

707
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:41,480
Speaker 2: that's what the next fifteen years of Bushwar are going

708
00:38:41,520 --> 00:38:44,319
Speaker 2: to be. The Rhodesian Bushwar, which starts after this point

709
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 2: in sixty five and inns and seventy nine, is just

710
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 2: the result of Africans cleaning up Great Britain's mess. Right,

711
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 2: So this is all a Cold War conflict, and because

712
00:38:58,239 --> 00:39:02,000
Speaker 2: of that, it's going to be wrapped in Cold war terms.

713
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 2: Sometimes to an extent, that's reasonable, right, because a lot

714
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:08,839
Speaker 2: of Rhodesia's neighbors are getting military aid from the USSR

715
00:39:08,920 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 2: in China, right, Zapu and Zanu are both getting guns

716
00:39:13,000 --> 00:39:16,879
Speaker 2: from the USSR and or China, depending on their allegiances.

717
00:39:17,560 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 2: But it's also not like most of these nationalist groups

718
00:39:21,239 --> 00:39:25,960
Speaker 2: are not primarily motivated by Marxism. They become Marxists or

719
00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,320
Speaker 2: are start spreading Marxist talking points because those are the

720
00:39:29,320 --> 00:39:31,879
Speaker 2: people giving them guns, But they really just want independence,

721
00:39:32,000 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 2: that's the primary thing. And so he's going through Smith

722
00:39:36,719 --> 00:39:40,399
Speaker 2: is going to really frame this as a fight against communism.

723
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 2: This is like part of the global Cold War, but

724
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 2: it's not really like not in any meaningful sense of

725
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 2: the way. Like he makes communism be central to it,

726
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:52,960
Speaker 2: and he makes sure that the people who overthrow Rhodesia

727
00:39:53,160 --> 00:39:56,680
Speaker 2: ultimately will be communists, But this isn't really a Cold

728
00:39:56,680 --> 00:39:59,799
Speaker 2: War struggle in that way. This isn't the result of

729
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:04,080
Speaker 2: like the USSR and the United States wanting to like

730
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 2: having these like competing power areas. They're trying to prop up.

731
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:11,240
Speaker 2: This is the result of a bunch of white people

732
00:40:11,320 --> 00:40:13,799
Speaker 2: not being willing to hand over the shit that they

733
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 2: stole and then declaring anyone who wanted to take their

734
00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 2: stuff back from them communists. Right, That's really what's happening here.

735
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 2: So after sixty five, once he's declared independence, Zano and

736
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:29,319
Speaker 2: Zappu officially start acting as insurgents, right, and their goal

737
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:31,840
Speaker 2: is to create enough violence that they force the Rhodesian

738
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:36,279
Speaker 2: government to either capitulate or make the West intervene and

739
00:40:36,320 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 2: force the Rhodesian government out. Basically, if we just keep

740
00:40:39,200 --> 00:40:41,719
Speaker 2: fighting long enough, this will get ugly enough that the

741
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,399
Speaker 2: Rhodesian government will fall apart and then we'll be able

742
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,280
Speaker 2: to have black majority rule. And that strategy, in short,

743
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,560
Speaker 2: is going to work. Like this is a very effective

744
00:40:51,239 --> 00:40:55,400
Speaker 2: way to do things. Smith never quite catches up to

745
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,680
Speaker 2: what the real fight is about, and there's as a

746
00:40:59,680 --> 00:41:01,640
Speaker 2: result of this, there's going to be kind of two

747
00:41:01,920 --> 00:41:05,839
Speaker 2: narrative approaches to this war. Right. The Rhodesians are going

748
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:08,160
Speaker 2: to from what they're doing is fighting communism, which is

749
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:12,439
Speaker 2: really just like black people running their own affairs in Africa, Right,

750
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 2: And as a result of the fact that they see

751
00:41:15,520 --> 00:41:17,440
Speaker 2: it that way where this is a very I mean,

752
00:41:17,440 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 2: if you'll forgive the term black and white situation. They're

753
00:41:19,640 --> 00:41:23,360
Speaker 2: not able to deal with any of their enemies in

754
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 2: a nuanced way. They're not able to be like, well,

755
00:41:25,719 --> 00:41:27,560
Speaker 2: are there guys we could work with? Do we have

756
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,600
Speaker 2: neighbors who would be willing to like, partner with us

757
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,920
Speaker 2: in exchange for something. It's purely comes down to this

758
00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 2: racial struggle because of the way Ian Smith's politics are,

759
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:41,960
Speaker 2: and there's no way to negotiate a settlement out of that.

760
00:41:42,000 --> 00:41:46,359
Speaker 2: There's there's nothing but like increasing levels of bloodshed as

761
00:41:46,400 --> 00:41:48,760
Speaker 2: a result of how Ian Smith and the other white

762
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:53,600
Speaker 2: farmers in Rhodesia's see the world. So in two thousand

763
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:57,160
Speaker 2: and seven, Michael Evans wrote a study on Rhodesian tactics

764
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 2: for the journal Small Wars and Insurgencies, and he can

765
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:04,080
Speaker 2: included quote. The Rhodesian Front's ideology based on settler status

766
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:08,440
Speaker 2: anxiety upheld a conspiratorial interpretation of modern politics that emphasized

767
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:13,799
Speaker 2: virulent forms of anglophobia, anti communism, anti internationalism, and anti liberalism.

768
00:42:14,040 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 2: The Smith government portrayed African nationalism not as an indigenous

769
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:20,839
Speaker 2: political phenomenon, but as an external instrument of world communism

770
00:42:20,880 --> 00:42:26,080
Speaker 2: and Western appeasement. So that's part of what's going to

771
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:28,799
Speaker 2: destroy Rhodesia is they're never able to look at the

772
00:42:28,840 --> 00:42:32,120
Speaker 2: world as it is. They have to create this fanciful

773
00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:36,240
Speaker 2: alternate reality as what's happening is not we took everything

774
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,280
Speaker 2: from these people and they want some of it back,

775
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,320
Speaker 2: and instead, no, no, no, there's this world communist specter

776
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,560
Speaker 2: that's trying to destroy the West, and we're the last

777
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:48,080
Speaker 2: men on the wall stopping communism from breaking through and

778
00:42:48,120 --> 00:42:50,560
Speaker 2: taking all of Africa. That's very much how they have

779
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:52,359
Speaker 2: to look at it, and so again they can't think

780
00:42:52,400 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: about what's actually happening. They can't deal with any of

781
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 2: these communities as real people. They have to treat them

782
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:01,359
Speaker 2: as these like conspiratorial sit shadows on the wall, and

783
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,719
Speaker 2: that means they're never able to effectively have a strategy.

784
00:43:05,719 --> 00:43:08,279
Speaker 2: They're never able to really wrangle or build power in

785
00:43:08,320 --> 00:43:11,880
Speaker 2: a meaningful way. All Rhodesia has is the ability to

786
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 2: kill people militarily. They don't have any ability to actually

787
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,279
Speaker 2: build a base of power or expand the stability of

788
00:43:20,320 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 2: their government. All they can do is kill large numbers

789
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 2: of militants until they run out of guys to do

790
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 2: that with, right, And that's kind of the short story

791
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 2: of the Rhodesian Bush War. So the long story is,

792
00:43:36,160 --> 00:43:39,440
Speaker 2: you know, as I've stated, you've got these two different groups,

793
00:43:39,480 --> 00:43:43,000
Speaker 2: Sanu and ZAPU, that are like these, you know, fighting

794
00:43:43,080 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 2: for a black like majority ruled state to succeed Rhodesia

795
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,000
Speaker 2: that they want to call Zimbabwe. ZAPU's militia is called

796
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:55,040
Speaker 2: the Zimbabwe Independent People's Revolutionary Army or ZIPRA. And I

797
00:43:55,080 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 2: know there's so many pain in the ass acronyms here.

798
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:00,320
Speaker 2: What you need to know about ZIPRA is their mostly

799
00:44:00,320 --> 00:44:03,640
Speaker 2: made up of Nobelee tribesmen, right, and they're armed by

800
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:07,560
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union in Warsaw PAC nations. So one of

801
00:44:07,560 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 2: these militias is USSR backed and made up of Noblee tribesmen,

802
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 2: and the other militia, ZANDLA, which is ZANU's militia, is

803
00:44:17,520 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 2: made up of the Shona tribe and it's mostly armed

804
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,480
Speaker 2: by China. Now again, on paper, these are both communist

805
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,080
Speaker 2: militant groups, but they fight each other as often as

806
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:30,280
Speaker 2: they fight the Rhodesian state. Because this isn't really about communism,

807
00:44:30,520 --> 00:44:32,640
Speaker 2: it's not even about the differences between the USSR and

808
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 2: the People's Republic of China. It's about the fact that

809
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:37,400
Speaker 2: the fact that these two militias are made up of

810
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 2: two different tribes that have hated each other for a

811
00:44:39,840 --> 00:44:42,880
Speaker 2: very long time, and so they wind up shooting at

812
00:44:42,880 --> 00:44:45,960
Speaker 2: each other all the time. And again, great situation to

813
00:44:46,000 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 2: be in if you're Ian Smith's government, to have your

814
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:51,959
Speaker 2: two enemies primarily fighting each other, and he just can't

815
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:54,680
Speaker 2: take advantage of it because he's such a stupid dummy,

816
00:44:55,000 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 2: Like it's a very This is an easy situation for

817
00:44:57,840 --> 00:45:00,840
Speaker 2: a smarter man to get some sort of benefit out of,

818
00:45:00,920 --> 00:45:04,600
Speaker 2: and he just cannot stop fucking up here because he's

819
00:45:04,640 --> 00:45:07,879
Speaker 2: such a bigot. A competent counterinsurgent force would have made

820
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:09,960
Speaker 2: a lot of hay out of this, but Smith's white

821
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:14,359
Speaker 2: supremacist front cannot abide nuance. All Black Belishes are communists,

822
00:45:14,600 --> 00:45:17,239
Speaker 2: All communists are the enemy, and so we can't work

823
00:45:17,280 --> 00:45:19,960
Speaker 2: with one above the other. Per that article in Small

824
00:45:19,960 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 2: Wars Journal that I quoted from, earlier Rhodesian military sit

825
00:45:23,440 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 2: reps designated all gorillas as communists trained terrorists ctts, and

826
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,720
Speaker 2: few white Rhodesians could even accept that they were involved

827
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 2: in a civil war for black emancipation until the late

828
00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:37,320
Speaker 2: nineteen seventies, Rhodesian Foreign Prime Minister P. K. Vanderbilt said

829
00:45:37,480 --> 00:45:39,880
Speaker 2: this is not a racial war, but black terrorists and

830
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 2: white skinned communists on one side, and a multi racial

831
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,440
Speaker 2: army of black and white soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder

832
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:49,000
Speaker 2: on the other side. In contrast, a Zandla training document

833
00:45:49,120 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 2: characterized the war as follows. The principal objective of our

834
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: revolution is the seizure of power by means of destruction

835
00:45:54,920 --> 00:45:58,080
Speaker 2: of the racist political military machine and its replacement by

836
00:45:58,120 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 2: the people in arms in order to change the existing

837
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:03,440
Speaker 2: economic and social order. So again on the side of

838
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,560
Speaker 2: the Rhodesians, this is a fantasy. It's not a race war.

839
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: We're fighting a war against communism, and we actually have

840
00:46:09,640 --> 00:46:12,160
Speaker 2: a multi racial army. It's just that all of the

841
00:46:12,239 --> 00:46:17,400
Speaker 2: black groups are communist, right, Whereas the militias have this

842
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:19,600
Speaker 2: idea that like, we're fighting a racist state and if

843
00:46:19,640 --> 00:46:21,640
Speaker 2: we break down that racist state, we're going to replace

844
00:46:21,680 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 2: it with something. So fundamentally, Zandla and Zebra are looking

845
00:46:26,000 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 2: at the world as it is in some way, and

846
00:46:28,880 --> 00:46:32,080
Speaker 2: the Rhodesians are looking at a fantasy of the world.

847
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 2: And that's I think fundamentally, why Rhodesia is going to

848
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 2: lose is they're never really looking at what's actually happening

849
00:46:38,320 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 2: in the world. And this is enough. This this, the

850
00:46:41,480 --> 00:46:44,040
Speaker 2: fact that they they're operating from this point of delusion

851
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 2: is enough to overcome some major advantages they have. Not

852
00:46:47,280 --> 00:46:49,799
Speaker 2: only do they have an army at the start of this,

853
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 2: and Zandla and Zepra don't. They've just got some guys

854
00:46:53,160 --> 00:46:56,920
Speaker 2: in the woods at the outbreak of hostilities. Both Zandla

855
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:00,760
Speaker 2: and Zeppra are training for wildly different purposes, right, because

856
00:47:00,800 --> 00:47:04,359
Speaker 2: the USSR and China have very different military theories. Right.

857
00:47:04,560 --> 00:47:07,760
Speaker 2: The Soviet Union is a big believer in advanced weapons systems.

858
00:47:07,760 --> 00:47:09,440
Speaker 2: We're going to get you guys the right weapons, and

859
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,680
Speaker 2: you'll use those to destroy the Rhodesian military, and then

860
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,799
Speaker 2: you'll take power. The Chinese instructors are very much they're maoists, right,

861
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 2: and they're talking about you're going to build this people's army.

862
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 2: You're going to like very methodically take and gain support

863
00:47:22,480 --> 00:47:24,760
Speaker 2: in these little villages, and once you get the support

864
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:26,759
Speaker 2: of all of the people living in this area, then

865
00:47:26,760 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 2: you'll form these kind of like people's militias in order

866
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:33,520
Speaker 2: to take back territory from the state security forces, which

867
00:47:33,560 --> 00:47:36,360
Speaker 2: is going to work, like ultimately that is the strategy

868
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:40,480
Speaker 2: that works a lot better than the USSR's strategy. But

869
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:43,239
Speaker 2: they're not really able the Rhodesians aren't able to look

870
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:45,360
Speaker 2: at either of these groups is as different. Even so

871
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: they're not able to actually see like how they're gradually

872
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 2: starting to lose this war over time, as Zandals starts

873
00:47:53,000 --> 00:47:56,680
Speaker 2: training and recruiting networks of informants and getting you know,

874
00:47:56,719 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 2: support from all these villages across rural Rhodesia RODJ, which

875
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 2: is intelligence operations, which had been good at the start

876
00:48:02,920 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 2: of the war, they start losing all of their insight

877
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 2: into what's happening on the ground as people, you know,

878
00:48:08,800 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 2: their spies get murdered and as their enemies get better

879
00:48:12,160 --> 00:48:15,719
Speaker 2: at actually like building a ground game and building like

880
00:48:15,840 --> 00:48:19,520
Speaker 2: a like an intelligence network. And so the first thing

881
00:48:19,520 --> 00:48:22,120
Speaker 2: that happens to Rhodesia is they lose their eyes and

882
00:48:22,239 --> 00:48:26,239
Speaker 2: ears on the ground these networks of Maoist informants that

883
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,520
Speaker 2: are spreading across rural Rhodesia, which means they start they

884
00:48:29,960 --> 00:48:32,680
Speaker 2: become increasingly blind to what life is like to the

885
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 2: majority of people in the regions that they're fighting over,

886
00:48:36,120 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 2: and so because they don't know any of that, all

887
00:48:38,800 --> 00:48:40,760
Speaker 2: they think about is in terms of how many enemies

888
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:44,280
Speaker 2: are we killing, and like how many battles are we winning?

889
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,360
Speaker 2: And not well, are we like winning battles that matter?

890
00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:50,359
Speaker 2: Are we winning the support of the people, Are any

891
00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:52,759
Speaker 2: of these villages coming over to our side? Or are

892
00:48:52,760 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 2: more and more of them becoming sympathetic to the enemy

893
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:59,399
Speaker 2: Every year and so on paper, Rhodesia's winning every year

894
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:01,799
Speaker 2: of the war. They never lose a battle. They damn

895
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:04,319
Speaker 2: near never lose a firefight because they've got all the

896
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,839
Speaker 2: advanced guns, they've got the armored cars and tanks, they've

897
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 2: got helicopters and planes, and so for a long time

898
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,520
Speaker 2: Rhodesians and people internationally look at the conflict are like,

899
00:49:15,520 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 2: look another battle where the Rhodesians military one. Obviously they've

900
00:49:19,680 --> 00:49:22,520
Speaker 2: got to be winning this struggle, when in reality they're

901
00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 2: winning nothing. All they're doing is killing people, and they

902
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:29,160
Speaker 2: can't see that that's actually taking them closer to defeat

903
00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,239
Speaker 2: because they're running out of ammunition, they're running out of men.

904
00:49:33,400 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 2: You know, they don't have much of either. And as

905
00:49:36,680 --> 00:49:39,799
Speaker 2: they make more and more of the majority black population

906
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 2: deliberately hostile to them. Those people fall into the arms

907
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:46,240
Speaker 2: of these militias that they're fighting, which just keep getting

908
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:48,880
Speaker 2: bigger and bigger, and they're just like, well, but we

909
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:52,000
Speaker 2: keep killing them every time we fight them, and that

910
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,759
Speaker 2: doesn't negate the fact that they're getting larger still and

911
00:49:55,840 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 2: to the point where they're getting larger than you can

912
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 2: fight back. And so it's just this process of Rhodesia

913
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:06,000
Speaker 2: winning on paper until they lose after about fifteen years.

914
00:50:06,040 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 2: It's a very like fun war to look at from

915
00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 2: that standpoint, and very much the Rhodesian Bush War is

916
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:16,320
Speaker 2: the war that presages all of like the twenty first

917
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:19,759
Speaker 2: century great power conflicts that the US has been in

918
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:22,560
Speaker 2: where you've got this advanced military with a lot of

919
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,680
Speaker 2: special forces guys, and it seems like they're always winning

920
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:27,600
Speaker 2: and then we lose the war. How did we lose

921
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 2: the war? It's because no one is ever looking at like,

922
00:50:29,480 --> 00:50:34,440
Speaker 2: what would it take to win the war? Right and Rhodesian, Yeah,

923
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:37,279
Speaker 2: it's about winning the war. It's not about killing guy.

924
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,040
Speaker 2: That's the thing people still fuck up is they're like, well,

925
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 2: you win by killing the enemy. No you don't, No,

926
00:50:43,120 --> 00:50:43,600
Speaker 2: you don't.

927
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:45,920
Speaker 5: Any real sanity.

928
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:49,640
Speaker 2: You win by having the stuff. You win by having land,

929
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:51,600
Speaker 2: you win by having food, You win by having territory.

930
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:54,439
Speaker 2: Sometimes cleaning the enemy is helpful for that. But if

931
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 2: you're just kind of what the Rhodesians are doing is

932
00:50:56,560 --> 00:50:59,600
Speaker 2: they're they're creating what they call like these fire force

933
00:50:59,640 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 2: missions where they'll find a group of gorillas in the

934
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 2: woods and they'll get a bunch of them to gather together,

935
00:51:04,520 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 2: and then they'll wipe them out in a set piece

936
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:08,239
Speaker 2: battle where they send in a bunch of guys and

937
00:51:08,239 --> 00:51:10,759
Speaker 2: they'll kill like a thousand dudes, and then they'll leave

938
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 2: and they still don't actually hold anything, and they haven't

939
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:17,480
Speaker 2: won any hearts and minds. They just killed people. But

940
00:51:17,560 --> 00:51:20,680
Speaker 2: because they're good at this, we're really good at these battles,

941
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,120
Speaker 2: and it's really easy for a general to make a

942
00:51:23,120 --> 00:51:25,200
Speaker 2: case for themselves and to get promoted by luckily, at

943
00:51:25,200 --> 00:51:27,680
Speaker 2: how many of these battles I've won that Smith and

944
00:51:27,719 --> 00:51:30,520
Speaker 2: his generals become convinced these things that we're good at

945
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 2: are what means we're winning. Because we're good at this

946
00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 2: part of the war, that must be the part of

947
00:51:37,360 --> 00:51:38,960
Speaker 2: the war that we have to be good at to win.

948
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:41,319
Speaker 2: As opposed to is does it matter that we're good

949
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:43,080
Speaker 2: at this part of the war. Doesn't matter that we

950
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,400
Speaker 2: never lose a gunfight if we don't actually take anything.

951
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,399
Speaker 2: It's the fucking it's the problem. In the US ran

952
00:51:49,440 --> 00:51:52,400
Speaker 2: into an Afghanistan. We've got all these great special forces,

953
00:51:52,400 --> 00:51:54,759
Speaker 2: they're the best in gunfights of anyone in the world.

954
00:51:55,040 --> 00:51:57,680
Speaker 2: They never lose in a stand up fight. How could

955
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 2: we have lost, Well, because we never took anything. We

956
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 2: just killed people for a while and then left.

957
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:06,840
Speaker 1: It also turns out that like senseless violence, not really

958
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,640
Speaker 1: a thing that wins people over to join your side.

959
00:52:10,040 --> 00:52:12,960
Speaker 2: No, no, not at all. So as the war goes on,

960
00:52:13,000 --> 00:52:15,239
Speaker 2: it becomes clear that the Rhodesian military is going to

961
00:52:15,280 --> 00:52:18,320
Speaker 2: rely more heavily on black soldiers than they had hoped.

962
00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:23,360
Speaker 2: Smith's party grudgingly offered mild concessions to black citizens in

963
00:52:23,480 --> 00:52:25,800
Speaker 2: order to try and convince some of them to join.

964
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,760
Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty nine, a reformed constitution guaranteed six million

965
00:52:29,800 --> 00:52:33,839
Speaker 2: Rhodesian Africans sixteen seats in the Assembly. Rhodigia's two hundred

966
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:37,439
Speaker 2: and seventy thousand white citizens got fifty seats. That same year,

967
00:52:37,600 --> 00:52:40,880
Speaker 2: Smith's party introduced a land tenure Act that equalized the

968
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:43,960
Speaker 2: amount of land reserved for white and black owners. And

969
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,279
Speaker 2: again none of these are really very equal. But this

970
00:52:46,320 --> 00:52:48,520
Speaker 2: shows the desperation he's in. He doesn't want to be

971
00:52:48,600 --> 00:52:50,839
Speaker 2: doing any of this at all. He just has to

972
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 2: because like we like I need, there's this, there's this

973
00:52:55,719 --> 00:52:58,399
Speaker 2: slow understand that we need to do something to win

974
00:52:58,480 --> 00:53:01,600
Speaker 2: hearts and minds. It just always way too slow and

975
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:04,439
Speaker 2: never like he's never will He doesn't actually care about

976
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:06,840
Speaker 2: these people, who just hopes they won't notice that sixteen's

977
00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:11,960
Speaker 2: a smaller number than fifty. So the first stage of

978
00:53:12,000 --> 00:53:14,719
Speaker 2: the Bush War ends in nineteen sixty eight, and it

979
00:53:14,760 --> 00:53:17,080
Speaker 2: looks like Rhodesia's winning at this point. They kill a

980
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:20,920
Speaker 2: lot of They kill so many insurgents that for a

981
00:53:20,920 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 2: brief period of time in sixty eight and sixty nine,

982
00:53:23,280 --> 00:53:26,319
Speaker 2: there's not really any insurgents left in Rhodesia itself. They

983
00:53:26,320 --> 00:53:29,160
Speaker 2: all have to flee to like bases in the neighboring

984
00:53:29,200 --> 00:53:34,360
Speaker 2: countries in order to like avoid getting massacred, and because

985
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:37,920
Speaker 2: the neighboring countries are like South Africa and Portugal's African Empire.

986
00:53:37,960 --> 00:53:41,160
Speaker 2: For the most part, this is pretty good for Rhodesia initially,

987
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:44,520
Speaker 2: but then in seventy two, Portugal's African Empire starts to

988
00:53:44,560 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 2: fall apart, and Mozambique over the next couple of years

989
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:50,000
Speaker 2: is going to like Portugal is going to lose control

990
00:53:50,040 --> 00:53:53,279
Speaker 2: of Mozambique, and then it's going to become like like

991
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 2: it's going to get taken over by the people who

992
00:53:55,680 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 2: live there and they're going to create a communist state,

993
00:53:58,239 --> 00:54:00,000
Speaker 2: and those folks are going to be willing to provide

994
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:04,640
Speaker 2: aid and support to these like Rhodesian insurgents when they

995
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:08,279
Speaker 2: leave Rhodesia and need to rebuild their strength. So the

996
00:54:08,320 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: fact that they were really good at killing these guys

997
00:54:10,719 --> 00:54:13,680
Speaker 2: initially looks like it's working, but all that really does

998
00:54:13,760 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 2: is it causes them to like set up bases in

999
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:20,240
Speaker 2: areas that Rhodesia can't follow them into and start building

1000
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,120
Speaker 2: their power from there. And when the Rhodesian government realizes

1001
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:28,520
Speaker 2: what's happening, they start launching attacks into neighboring states, which

1002
00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 2: pisss off everyone else in Africa and leads to their

1003
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:36,000
Speaker 2: increasingly getting separated from the allies that they'd had, and

1004
00:54:36,239 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 2: it leads to a further escalation of violence. So all

1005
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:41,359
Speaker 2: they're doing by killing all these people and then moving

1006
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:43,560
Speaker 2: into these other countries to kill the rebels that had

1007
00:54:43,560 --> 00:54:48,200
Speaker 2: fled to these neighboring countries. Is isolating themselves and burning

1008
00:54:48,239 --> 00:54:52,200
Speaker 2: more and more of their fairly scant resources, killing people

1009
00:54:52,239 --> 00:54:55,640
Speaker 2: that it doesn't benefit them at all to kill. So

1010
00:54:55,719 --> 00:54:58,799
Speaker 2: the situation spirals out of control pretty quickly past this point.

1011
00:54:58,920 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: It's just incredible that we've like learned absolutely nothing.

1012
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: Oh no, nothing, this is still how does Western military

1013
00:55:05,760 --> 00:55:06,600
Speaker 2: speak of counter and.

1014
00:55:06,560 --> 00:55:09,320
Speaker 1: See this is what this is very similar to what

1015
00:55:09,360 --> 00:55:10,399
Speaker 1: Trump's doing right now.

1016
00:55:11,120 --> 00:55:13,680
Speaker 2: Well, it's very similar. At the Rhodesian military is the

1017
00:55:13,680 --> 00:55:16,200
Speaker 2: first one to figure out, like, okay, well we've got

1018
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:19,319
Speaker 2: these we've got these forward operating bases that are in

1019
00:55:19,719 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 2: basically enemy territory that need to be supported by these

1020
00:55:22,719 --> 00:55:26,360
Speaker 2: caravans of armored vehicles. Will design these armored vehicles that

1021
00:55:26,400 --> 00:55:29,000
Speaker 2: are meant to take road side bombs because the enemy

1022
00:55:29,040 --> 00:55:31,200
Speaker 2: is setting up a lot of roadside bombs, and so

1023
00:55:31,200 --> 00:55:33,200
Speaker 2: they're built. It's very similar to what the US is

1024
00:55:33,200 --> 00:55:35,439
Speaker 2: doing in Afghanistan. You've got these big route clearance type

1025
00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:38,919
Speaker 2: vehicles and armored vehicles driving from posts to posts, trying

1026
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:42,080
Speaker 2: to hold these posts and occasionally doing these fire force

1027
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:45,799
Speaker 2: missions where they massacre a bunch of insurgents, but they're

1028
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 2: never actually owning or holding anything, because the populace is

1029
00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:55,359
Speaker 2: never anything but held at gunpoint. Right. So, because all

1030
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 2: of this all is increasingly falls down to just like

1031
00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 2: how many people can we kill? And that comes the

1032
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:04,239
Speaker 2: only language that the Rhodesian government talks to about talks

1033
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,040
Speaker 2: about the war to itself in, and the only language

1034
00:56:07,080 --> 00:56:09,840
Speaker 2: the Rhodesian government talks to the outside world in is

1035
00:56:10,000 --> 00:56:13,399
Speaker 2: body count. And I'm gonna quote William Turner's piece again here.

1036
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:17,040
Speaker 2: Body count became a political drug that Ian Smith wielded

1037
00:56:17,080 --> 00:56:19,960
Speaker 2: as a negotiation tactic, thanks in part to a robust,

1038
00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:25,520
Speaker 2: albeit hollow, counterinsurgency strategy. And that strategy is we find

1039
00:56:25,600 --> 00:56:29,040
Speaker 2: these different militia encampments, we send in these fire forces

1040
00:56:29,080 --> 00:56:31,000
Speaker 2: to spark fights with them, and we wipe out a

1041
00:56:31,000 --> 00:56:33,640
Speaker 2: bunch of guys, and then we crow like we killed

1042
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:37,040
Speaker 2: another thousand guys. Clearly we're winning. Why don't you come

1043
00:56:37,080 --> 00:56:40,439
Speaker 2: to the table and negotiate with us? Right? And none

1044
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:45,000
Speaker 2: of this works because the enemies of Rhodesia understand that, like, yeah,

1045
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,960
Speaker 2: you're good at killing us, but we always have more

1046
00:56:48,040 --> 00:56:51,520
Speaker 2: people because ninety seven percent of the populace is more

1047
00:56:51,600 --> 00:56:54,360
Speaker 2: or less supportive of what we're doing. So all we

1048
00:56:54,440 --> 00:56:56,719
Speaker 2: have to do is keep them fighting us until they

1049
00:56:56,719 --> 00:57:00,759
Speaker 2: bleed themselves white. And this is why anytime in the

1050
00:57:00,760 --> 00:57:03,759
Speaker 2: modern era too, if you see like an advanced military

1051
00:57:03,840 --> 00:57:07,360
Speaker 2: fighting an insurgent war and they start bragging about body counts,

1052
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:10,320
Speaker 2: they're losing. You can refer this to the US in

1053
00:57:10,360 --> 00:57:12,759
Speaker 2: Iran whenever you have a military that's bragging it by

1054
00:57:12,800 --> 00:57:14,600
Speaker 2: look at the list of guys we've killed. Look at

1055
00:57:14,600 --> 00:57:17,280
Speaker 2: how many guys we're killing, and that's all they're telling you.

1056
00:57:17,720 --> 00:57:22,040
Speaker 2: That means they're losing, because killing guys doesn't win wars.

1057
00:57:22,400 --> 00:57:29,000
Speaker 2: Oh no, you know what does win wars? Products and

1058
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:41,480
Speaker 2: services kind of we're back. So Rhodesia has gotten locked

1059
00:57:41,480 --> 00:57:45,200
Speaker 2: into this by the early seventies, this disastrous strategy of

1060
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:48,479
Speaker 2: carrying out these missions, killing as many guys as they can,

1061
00:57:48,560 --> 00:57:51,160
Speaker 2: and then bragging about it on the news, basically and

1062
00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:55,000
Speaker 2: hoping that that's going to eventually make the enemy stop

1063
00:57:55,080 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 2: fighting them. And this is all a direct result of

1064
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 2: the political ideology create crafted and touted by Ian Smith.

1065
00:58:02,160 --> 00:58:06,720
Speaker 2: This strategy is based entirely upon the Rhodesian Front's politics

1066
00:58:06,720 --> 00:58:09,479
Speaker 2: that Smith had authored per the Journal of Small Wars

1067
00:58:09,480 --> 00:58:13,040
Speaker 2: and Insurgencies. After nineteen seventy two, when Rhodesia faced a

1068
00:58:13,080 --> 00:58:16,480
Speaker 2: protracted insurgency, many of the principles of Rhodesian front ideology

1069
00:58:16,520 --> 00:58:20,640
Speaker 2: were applied to counterinsurgency warfare, with disastrous results. Because the

1070
00:58:20,680 --> 00:58:24,960
Speaker 2: Rhodesian government viewed African guerrilla warfare as unrelated to domestic politics,

1071
00:58:25,160 --> 00:58:29,240
Speaker 2: Rhodesian counterinsurgency lacked a realistic political dimension. The dictates of

1072
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:32,360
Speaker 2: settler ideology blinded the Rhodesian government to the vital need

1073
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:35,280
Speaker 2: to wind hearts and minds by applying timely principles of

1074
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 2: political pacification and reform to its counterinsurgency effort. Instead, a

1075
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:44,080
Speaker 2: Rhodesian counterinsurgency campaign of maximum force was pursued. Because they

1076
00:58:44,120 --> 00:58:48,040
Speaker 2: can't see these as people with legitimate grievances that need

1077
00:58:48,080 --> 00:58:51,480
Speaker 2: to be met and solved. They only see them as

1078
00:58:51,520 --> 00:58:55,040
Speaker 2: the sinister communists who have to be destroyed, and that

1079
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:59,080
Speaker 2: means they're never able to gain any actual ground. In

1080
00:58:59,160 --> 00:59:03,560
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, Smith's government launched Operation Hurricane, carrying out

1081
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:06,320
Speaker 2: attacks that reduced the number of gorillas in Rhodesia again

1082
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:09,480
Speaker 2: to less than one hundred. Several times they wipe out

1083
00:59:09,560 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 2: basically all of the insurgents in Rhodesia, and hey, look

1084
00:59:12,560 --> 00:59:14,920
Speaker 2: we're on the verge of victory. And then a year

1085
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:17,880
Speaker 2: or two later there's thousands of more insurgents and they're

1086
00:59:17,880 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 2: fighting their backs to the wall again, because all people

1087
00:59:21,360 --> 00:59:24,280
Speaker 2: are doing is like leaving and recovering their strength nearby

1088
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:27,760
Speaker 2: and then moving right back in. Now, that same year

1089
00:59:27,960 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 2: that Smith declares this victory, there's a coup in Lisbon

1090
00:59:31,560 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 2: that permanently ends Portugal's African Empire, and a Marxist government

1091
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:38,680
Speaker 2: takes power in Mozambique after that and starts providing insurgents

1092
00:59:38,680 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 2: with open aid and assistance. By this stage of the war,

1093
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:45,520
Speaker 2: Rhodesia has transitioned fully to a military that very much

1094
00:59:45,560 --> 00:59:48,720
Speaker 2: resembles our own in some ways. At the start of

1095
00:59:48,760 --> 00:59:51,960
Speaker 2: the war, Rhodesha had had their kind of special operations

1096
00:59:52,080 --> 00:59:55,160
Speaker 2: units which were there to support the regular army. By

1097
00:59:55,200 --> 00:59:58,840
Speaker 2: seventy four to seventy five, special forces are doing nearly

1098
00:59:58,880 --> 01:00:01,520
Speaker 2: all of the killing in fire, supported by these like

1099
01:00:01,600 --> 01:00:05,520
Speaker 2: elite armored and airborne regiments that the regular military is

1100
01:00:05,560 --> 01:00:07,800
Speaker 2: there to support. So it goes from special forces are

1101
01:00:07,840 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 2: there to carry out missions the regular military can't do.

1102
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:15,120
Speaker 2: It's all about special forces because we're really good at

1103
01:00:15,160 --> 01:00:18,640
Speaker 2: training these small units of killers up and having them

1104
01:00:18,680 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 2: do these like very complicated missions, and we don't really

1105
01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 2: know how to do anything else. So we're just going

1106
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:26,480
Speaker 2: to assume that that's going to win us the victory

1107
01:00:26,520 --> 01:00:29,160
Speaker 2: because look at how impressive these special forces guys are.

1108
01:00:29,360 --> 01:00:32,520
Speaker 2: They can carry out these missions so well. It doesn't

1109
01:00:32,600 --> 01:00:34,080
Speaker 2: no one ever. It's the same It's the same thing

1110
01:00:34,120 --> 01:00:35,880
Speaker 2: with the US right where we're like, look at how

1111
01:00:35,880 --> 01:00:38,080
Speaker 2: scary our navy seals are. Look at how good at

1112
01:00:38,120 --> 01:00:40,800
Speaker 2: these guys are at like killing or capturing the leader

1113
01:00:40,800 --> 01:00:43,920
Speaker 2: of this country. Maybe we don't need anything but special

1114
01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:46,120
Speaker 2: forces and air power to win a war. And then

1115
01:00:46,160 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 2: you wind up in the situation like Iran where you're like, like, no,

1116
01:00:48,880 --> 01:00:51,479
Speaker 2: you need quite a bit more than that, actually, right,

1117
01:00:52,040 --> 01:00:54,920
Speaker 2: But Smith is trying. The reason why they like relying

1118
01:00:54,920 --> 01:00:57,880
Speaker 2: on special forces is that you can you don't need

1119
01:00:57,920 --> 01:00:59,720
Speaker 2: a lot of guys, so you don't need as many

1120
01:00:59,720 --> 01:01:03,040
Speaker 2: soul soldiers, and they're less likely to die in the

1121
01:01:03,040 --> 01:01:05,360
Speaker 2: field and so you have less casualties. You have to

1122
01:01:05,360 --> 01:01:09,160
Speaker 2: explain to these grieving white families. So in the mid

1123
01:01:09,280 --> 01:01:11,800
Speaker 2: seventies they move over to this concept of what they

1124
01:01:11,840 --> 01:01:14,880
Speaker 2: call pseudo operations, which is the term they have for

1125
01:01:14,960 --> 01:01:18,320
Speaker 2: these special forces raids they're going to increasingly be be

1126
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:22,520
Speaker 2: reliant on. Here's how Ian Martinez described pseudo operations in

1127
01:01:22,560 --> 01:01:24,800
Speaker 2: a two thousand and two analysis published for Third World

1128
01:01:24,840 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 2: Quarterly Security Personnel addresses insurgents and infiltrate rural communities, seeking

1129
01:01:30,040 --> 01:01:32,880
Speaker 2: out real insurgents. When they found the real insurgents, they

1130
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:35,240
Speaker 2: could opt for an engagement or call in their position

1131
01:01:35,280 --> 01:01:38,480
Speaker 2: and allow other army units, notably the Rhodesian Light Infantry

1132
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:41,160
Speaker 2: to come in. At first, highly trained white officers of

1133
01:01:41,200 --> 01:01:44,200
Speaker 2: the SAS were used for the operations, but language barriers

1134
01:01:44,200 --> 01:01:47,200
Speaker 2: and the distinct physical facial features of the whites necessitated

1135
01:01:47,200 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 2: the use of black Zimbabweans. And this is something if

1136
01:01:50,440 --> 01:01:54,440
Speaker 2: you read current day Rhodesia defenders, they'll be like Rhodesian

1137
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:57,920
Speaker 2: Special Forces were integrated. They had white and black soldiers

1138
01:01:57,920 --> 01:02:01,200
Speaker 2: fighting alongside each other. Right this, How could they be

1139
01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:05,160
Speaker 2: a racist state if they have black Special forces guys. Now,

1140
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:08,280
Speaker 2: the reality is these special forces guys and most of

1141
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:10,400
Speaker 2: them are in a unit called the Sellu Scouts, which

1142
01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:13,760
Speaker 2: is a mixed race unit. But that's a unit. It's

1143
01:02:13,760 --> 01:02:16,600
Speaker 2: a mixed race unit because they need black people to

1144
01:02:16,840 --> 01:02:22,000
Speaker 2: infiltrate rural communities and carry out terrorist attacks. Basically, that's

1145
01:02:22,080 --> 01:02:25,640
Speaker 2: why they've integrated their special forces, is that white people

1146
01:02:25,880 --> 01:02:26,600
Speaker 2: can't hide.

1147
01:02:26,760 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 5: But you could also say this about all army for

1148
01:02:29,840 --> 01:02:30,600
Speaker 5: all of time.

1149
01:02:30,960 --> 01:02:34,960
Speaker 4: You know, well, yeah, just because there are people of

1150
01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:39,520
Speaker 4: color in any military matter what count, does not mean

1151
01:02:39,560 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 4: it's not racist.

1152
01:02:40,800 --> 01:02:45,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's like it's particularly rap because the pro

1153
01:02:45,440 --> 01:02:48,440
Speaker 2: Dasha propaganda is always But of course, like all these

1154
01:02:48,440 --> 01:02:51,000
Speaker 2: black people wanted to join the military, how how could

1155
01:02:51,000 --> 01:02:52,760
Speaker 2: it have been a bad state if they were willing

1156
01:02:52,840 --> 01:02:56,000
Speaker 2: to volunteer for the military, And that is a lie,

1157
01:02:56,160 --> 01:02:59,880
Speaker 2: as Martinez his piece makes clear, injured or captured in

1158
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:03,120
Speaker 2: surgeons were turned and made to serve the Sellu Scouts.

1159
01:03:03,320 --> 01:03:06,000
Speaker 2: Thus compromised, they could never return to their villages and

1160
01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:08,520
Speaker 2: were beholden to the regime for their lives. The new

1161
01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:11,040
Speaker 2: recruits were able to provide intelligence and the latest call

1162
01:03:11,080 --> 01:03:13,960
Speaker 2: signs used by the real insurgents. The British had made

1163
01:03:13,960 --> 01:03:17,440
Speaker 2: a similar pseudo op'd used a similar pseudo ops concept

1164
01:03:17,480 --> 01:03:20,080
Speaker 2: in Malaya and Kenya. The Selu Scouts were housed at

1165
01:03:20,080 --> 01:03:22,959
Speaker 2: a secret facility near Mount Darwin within the Hurricane theater

1166
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:25,760
Speaker 2: of the war. The Selu Scouts proved extremely effective and

1167
01:03:25,800 --> 01:03:28,680
Speaker 2: providing the security forces with useful and timely intelligence and

1168
01:03:28,760 --> 01:03:31,440
Speaker 2: were responsible for a staggering sixty eight percent of all

1169
01:03:31,440 --> 01:03:35,120
Speaker 2: insurgent kills and capture in their areas of operation. But

1170
01:03:35,240 --> 01:03:37,680
Speaker 2: if you look at that, if you dig into that statement,

1171
01:03:37,720 --> 01:03:42,640
Speaker 2: what's happening is they're taking injured and captured insurgents and

1172
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:45,560
Speaker 2: they are making them carry out what are effectively war crimes.

1173
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:48,840
Speaker 2: These people are often wiping out whole villages and in

1174
01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:51,360
Speaker 2: order to stay alive. Basically, we'll pay you and will

1175
01:03:51,360 --> 01:03:53,919
Speaker 2: give you your lives in freedom if you carry out war

1176
01:03:53,960 --> 01:03:57,000
Speaker 2: crimes for us. And as a result, the folks who

1177
01:03:57,000 --> 01:03:59,680
Speaker 2: do join the Sellu Scouts, like the Black Soldiers who

1178
01:03:59,680 --> 01:04:02,520
Speaker 2: agree to be a part of this unit, are being

1179
01:04:02,600 --> 01:04:05,240
Speaker 2: made into like this is just a war crimes unit.

1180
01:04:05,280 --> 01:04:08,320
Speaker 2: They're doing the most nightmarish crimes against humanity imaginable, and

1181
01:04:08,360 --> 01:04:11,280
Speaker 2: they can never go home again. Right. This is not

1182
01:04:11,360 --> 01:04:14,120
Speaker 2: a these people believed in the Rhodesian cause thing. This

1183
01:04:14,240 --> 01:04:17,240
Speaker 2: is a you capture these people and basically tortured them

1184
01:04:17,520 --> 01:04:19,600
Speaker 2: until they agreed to fight for you in a lot

1185
01:04:19,640 --> 01:04:22,520
Speaker 2: of cases, and then made sure they had no life

1186
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:25,640
Speaker 2: outside of committing war crimes for the regime. Right, that's

1187
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:29,640
Speaker 2: the reality of these mixed race units in the Rhodesian military.

1188
01:04:31,880 --> 01:04:34,920
Speaker 2: So the Sellu scouts are effective fighters, but they are

1189
01:04:34,960 --> 01:04:39,040
Speaker 2: also primarily effective at carrying out horrific war crimes, primarily

1190
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 2: war crimes using chemical weapons, which the Rhodesian government comes

1191
01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:44,600
Speaker 2: to love in the late state of the war, chemical

1192
01:04:44,600 --> 01:04:50,000
Speaker 2: and biological weapons. They're huge fans of that. So if

1193
01:04:50,000 --> 01:04:51,400
Speaker 2: you want an idea for how a lot of these

1194
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:55,320
Speaker 2: raids tend to look from a casualty standpoint, forty RHODISA

1195
01:04:55,360 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 2: launches like forty raids into Mozambique between February and June

1196
01:04:58,960 --> 01:05:01,960
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy six, and the largest of these rage,

1197
01:05:02,120 --> 01:05:06,080
Speaker 2: Operation Eland, ends with a little over one thousand gorilla

1198
01:05:06,480 --> 01:05:10,280
Speaker 2: fighters killed. These like these are Zandla guerrillas killed and

1199
01:05:10,440 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 2: zero casualties for the Rosi Dision military, right, And that

1200
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:18,160
Speaker 2: sounds great on paper, but it also like the fact

1201
01:05:18,160 --> 01:05:22,600
Speaker 2: that these are individually successful operations on the ground doesn't

1202
01:05:22,640 --> 01:05:26,919
Speaker 2: mean they're successful strategically. Because operation A land pisses off

1203
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:32,960
Speaker 2: South Africa, Rhodesians sending special forces into an independent country Mozambique,

1204
01:05:33,360 --> 01:05:36,600
Speaker 2: and South Africa is currently dealing with the fact that,

1205
01:05:36,680 --> 01:05:40,680
Speaker 2: like Mozambique is a geopolitical enemy of theirs that's being

1206
01:05:40,720 --> 01:05:43,360
Speaker 2: supported by both the Soviet Union and the Cuban government,

1207
01:05:43,720 --> 01:05:47,640
Speaker 2: and so they have issues if, like if Rhodesia is

1208
01:05:47,680 --> 01:05:50,640
Speaker 2: invading this country and it pisses off Mozambique and that

1209
01:05:50,760 --> 01:05:54,400
Speaker 2: increases the operational tempo and brings in more foreign assistance

1210
01:05:54,400 --> 01:05:57,920
Speaker 2: to Mozambique, it creates problems for South Africa, right, and

1211
01:05:58,000 --> 01:06:01,560
Speaker 2: so the South African PM so pissed at Rhodesia after

1212
01:06:01,600 --> 01:06:06,720
Speaker 2: this successful raid that he withdraws all South African soldiers, pilots, mechanics,

1213
01:06:06,880 --> 01:06:11,200
Speaker 2: liaison officers from Rhodesia and by nineteen seventy six, half

1214
01:06:11,200 --> 01:06:14,160
Speaker 2: of Rhodesa's defense budget was paid for by South Africa.

1215
01:06:14,880 --> 01:06:18,240
Speaker 2: It's a great example of how on paper we carried

1216
01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:20,840
Speaker 2: out this massive attack. We killed one thousand enemy guerillas

1217
01:06:20,840 --> 01:06:22,960
Speaker 2: and none of our own guys even got injured. What

1218
01:06:23,080 --> 01:06:26,200
Speaker 2: a success. No, you pissed off your ownly allies so

1219
01:06:26,280 --> 01:06:29,000
Speaker 2: much that they took away all of their assistants that

1220
01:06:29,120 --> 01:06:32,560
Speaker 2: made your war possible. Right, It's like one example writ

1221
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,840
Speaker 2: large of how stupid this strategy is, of all we

1222
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:38,040
Speaker 2: need to do is be better at killing. Well, no,

1223
01:06:38,120 --> 01:06:40,440
Speaker 2: because you ignored the political dimension. You pissed off. You

1224
01:06:40,480 --> 01:06:43,360
Speaker 2: were too racist for your own racist allies, and they

1225
01:06:43,360 --> 01:06:45,919
Speaker 2: took their ball and went home, and now you're fucked. Right,

1226
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:49,640
Speaker 2: that's what brings down Rhodesia as much as anything. Right.

1227
01:06:51,000 --> 01:06:53,640
Speaker 2: You know, they'd been flat footed after their collapse of

1228
01:06:53,640 --> 01:06:55,880
Speaker 2: their Portuguese allies in seventy four, and then after seventy

1229
01:06:55,920 --> 01:06:58,560
Speaker 2: six they don't even have South Africa to rely on.

1230
01:06:58,920 --> 01:07:02,280
Speaker 2: Smith has to call on reservists and draft ever larger

1231
01:07:02,360 --> 01:07:06,080
Speaker 2: numbers of like the shrinking white population. Because it's also

1232
01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:09,560
Speaker 2: pretty dangerous to be a normal Rhodesian soldier. Most of

1233
01:07:09,600 --> 01:07:12,240
Speaker 2: them are not these elite special forces units. Most of

1234
01:07:12,320 --> 01:07:15,760
Speaker 2: them are hanging out in these like isolated like forward

1235
01:07:15,800 --> 01:07:19,120
Speaker 2: operating bases or getting bombed on road sides, and so

1236
01:07:19,200 --> 01:07:21,640
Speaker 2: they are dying and getting wounded at a high level.

1237
01:07:21,840 --> 01:07:24,680
Speaker 2: And so young Rhodesians are fleeing the country. They're going

1238
01:07:24,680 --> 01:07:28,880
Speaker 2: to other western countries where white people are able to move,

1239
01:07:29,000 --> 01:07:31,240
Speaker 2: and they're bouncing from Rhodesia because they don't want to

1240
01:07:31,240 --> 01:07:35,040
Speaker 2: fight and die in this increasingly feudal war. So by

1241
01:07:35,040 --> 01:07:38,720
Speaker 2: the end of nineteen seventy six, Smith is fucked. Not

1242
01:07:38,840 --> 01:07:41,240
Speaker 2: only have all of his allies backed out, but the

1243
01:07:41,280 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 2: Prime Minister of South Africa BJ Wooster had called for

1244
01:07:45,080 --> 01:07:46,760
Speaker 2: majority rule in Rhodesia.

1245
01:07:47,000 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: Right.

1246
01:07:47,280 --> 01:07:51,120
Speaker 2: So now South Africa has gone from arming Rhodesia and

1247
01:07:51,160 --> 01:07:54,400
Speaker 2: supporting them to saying, you guys really need to give up, right,

1248
01:07:55,040 --> 01:07:57,120
Speaker 2: And this is this is the thing that kind of

1249
01:07:57,160 --> 01:07:59,720
Speaker 2: fucks it for Smith. You know, he had been Kissinger

1250
01:08:00,120 --> 01:08:03,439
Speaker 2: been pushing him at this point to you know, open

1251
01:08:03,560 --> 01:08:06,640
Speaker 2: up to majority rule. The great the British government had

1252
01:08:06,680 --> 01:08:09,280
Speaker 2: been pushing him. But it was when South Africa was like,

1253
01:08:09,360 --> 01:08:13,760
Speaker 2: you have to accept majority rule that he knows Rhodesia's

1254
01:08:13,760 --> 01:08:16,439
Speaker 2: goose is cooked. So he knows that by seventy six,

1255
01:08:16,960 --> 01:08:20,320
Speaker 2: but he doesn't accept the reality for more than two years.

1256
01:08:20,800 --> 01:08:23,599
Speaker 2: In seventy seven and seventy eight, Smith poured all of

1257
01:08:23,600 --> 01:08:26,840
Speaker 2: his nation's hopes and dreams into special forces operations that

1258
01:08:26,960 --> 01:08:32,519
Speaker 2: he knew were already failures, and increasingly these special forces

1259
01:08:32,640 --> 01:08:36,440
Speaker 2: units are only maintained by bringing in foreign born volunteers.

1260
01:08:36,720 --> 01:08:39,400
Speaker 2: And so in the late seventies, Rhodesia starts a major

1261
01:08:39,520 --> 01:08:42,280
Speaker 2: ad campaign. They're putting ads on all sorts of right

1262
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:46,000
Speaker 2: wing papers in the United States, in Britain and all

1263
01:08:46,040 --> 01:08:48,599
Speaker 2: across like the Western world, basically being like, hey, are

1264
01:08:48,600 --> 01:08:51,400
Speaker 2: you a racist in another part of the West. Come

1265
01:08:51,439 --> 01:08:54,679
Speaker 2: to Rhodesia. You can fight to put you can fight

1266
01:08:54,720 --> 01:08:58,679
Speaker 2: a war against those like scary black communists, and you'll

1267
01:08:58,680 --> 01:09:01,400
Speaker 2: get to live in like a white apartheid state afterwards.

1268
01:09:01,439 --> 01:09:03,960
Speaker 2: It'll be just like the Confederacy was. That's like the

1269
01:09:04,040 --> 01:09:07,559
Speaker 2: pitch Smith is making to white Americans largely is if

1270
01:09:07,680 --> 01:09:10,920
Speaker 2: you moved to Rhodesia and join our army, it'll be

1271
01:09:11,080 --> 01:09:15,479
Speaker 2: like the South never lost right. And that's that's kind.

1272
01:09:15,280 --> 01:09:16,280
Speaker 4: Of like him.

1273
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:20,800
Speaker 2: It's crazy stuff. Now, this is all match the fact

1274
01:09:20,800 --> 01:09:22,920
Speaker 2: that like this pitch to come and join us you'll

1275
01:09:22,960 --> 01:09:25,840
Speaker 2: get to be part of like a white state, is

1276
01:09:26,320 --> 01:09:30,040
Speaker 2: matched with this propaganda about how good the Rhodesian military is.

1277
01:09:30,080 --> 01:09:33,360
Speaker 2: There's all these books about these fire force attacks, which

1278
01:09:33,880 --> 01:09:37,960
Speaker 2: they're still legendary, and like white supremacist propaganda is like

1279
01:09:38,000 --> 01:09:40,400
Speaker 2: these are the best warriors the world ever produced, These

1280
01:09:40,439 --> 01:09:43,639
Speaker 2: great Rhodesian soldiers they killed twelve hundred men and didn't

1281
01:09:43,680 --> 01:09:46,559
Speaker 2: lose a single man, because you know, Rhodesians were the

1282
01:09:46,600 --> 01:09:49,320
Speaker 2: best fighters of their day, and the reality is that,

1283
01:09:49,439 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 2: like no, they were picking fights they knew they could

1284
01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:55,439
Speaker 2: win and not fighting fights that they knew they were

1285
01:09:55,439 --> 01:09:58,280
Speaker 2: going to lose. And they lost the war because of that,

1286
01:09:58,400 --> 01:10:01,760
Speaker 2: because like the fights that they were didn't matter, like

1287
01:10:01,800 --> 01:10:04,000
Speaker 2: they were not. They couldn't win any of the fights

1288
01:10:04,040 --> 01:10:06,200
Speaker 2: that mattered. They picked a bunch of useless fights that

1289
01:10:06,240 --> 01:10:10,200
Speaker 2: looked good on paper to convince racists to join their army. Right,

1290
01:10:10,439 --> 01:10:13,040
Speaker 2: That's what Rhodish's kind of doing at this point in time.

1291
01:10:14,360 --> 01:10:17,160
Speaker 2: By the end of nineteen seventy six, Rhodesian military planners

1292
01:10:17,160 --> 01:10:19,960
Speaker 2: had started admitting privately to each other that victory was

1293
01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:22,639
Speaker 2: no longer possible. All their army could do was stave

1294
01:10:22,680 --> 01:10:26,000
Speaker 2: off defeat. From that point forward, Smith told the army,

1295
01:10:26,120 --> 01:10:28,519
Speaker 2: the gloves are off. You can do whatever you need

1296
01:10:28,560 --> 01:10:32,080
Speaker 2: to win the war. There's no any crimes against humanity

1297
01:10:32,080 --> 01:10:34,120
Speaker 2: you want to commit. Give it a shot. We have

1298
01:10:34,160 --> 01:10:38,080
Speaker 2: no other like we've got nothing else in the tank. Basically, so,

1299
01:10:38,439 --> 01:10:42,120
Speaker 2: Rhodesia's Psyops unit creates a plan to kill and capture

1300
01:10:42,200 --> 01:10:45,160
Speaker 2: terrorists to win over the local populace. And in practice

1301
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:48,599
Speaker 2: this means they start executing prisoners in the field and

1302
01:10:48,720 --> 01:10:53,439
Speaker 2: assassinating ZANU officers abroad in you know, independent countries, and

1303
01:10:53,479 --> 01:10:57,599
Speaker 2: this disrupts the organization enough that like ZANU actually does

1304
01:10:57,680 --> 01:10:59,920
Speaker 2: suffer a lot from the casualties of like their high

1305
01:11:00,080 --> 01:11:04,439
Speaker 2: ranking leaders. But Zandla, the other militant organization, is still

1306
01:11:04,439 --> 01:11:06,559
Speaker 2: doing just fine. And that just means that like they

1307
01:11:06,640 --> 01:11:11,040
Speaker 2: get stronger by comparison. And at the same time, Smith

1308
01:11:11,080 --> 01:11:13,400
Speaker 2: and his generals are so convinced that this is working

1309
01:11:13,439 --> 01:11:16,320
Speaker 2: that they start escalating their dirty tricks campaign and really

1310
01:11:16,400 --> 01:11:21,400
Speaker 2: pouring all of their military effort into that. Martinez summarizes quote.

1311
01:11:21,640 --> 01:11:26,120
Speaker 2: The techniques used were poisoning wells, spreading cholera infected clothing

1312
01:11:26,240 --> 01:11:29,200
Speaker 2: used by terrorists, and using anthrax to kill cattle and

1313
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:32,320
Speaker 2: thus deny food supplies to the guerrillas. By nineteen seventy five,

1314
01:11:32,360 --> 01:11:34,960
Speaker 2: clinical trials were being performed on humans, a clear and

1315
01:11:35,040 --> 01:11:39,040
Speaker 2: recognized crime against humanity, provided by Rhodesia's answer to the

1316
01:11:39,080 --> 01:11:42,479
Speaker 2: CIA and the Sellu Scout's secret attention center in Mount Darwin.

1317
01:11:42,840 --> 01:11:46,040
Speaker 2: The doctors would administer various agents to the prisoners experimenting

1318
01:11:46,080 --> 01:11:49,559
Speaker 2: with agents and dosages. The CIO, which is Rdigia's CIA,

1319
01:11:49,640 --> 01:11:52,400
Speaker 2: then disposed of the bodies of the victims down mind shafts.

1320
01:11:52,680 --> 01:11:55,320
Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy six, deployments of the agents were ready

1321
01:11:55,320 --> 01:11:58,360
Speaker 2: and carried out by Sellu, Scouts and South Africans. The

1322
01:11:58,400 --> 01:12:01,360
Speaker 2: CIO and the Scouts used thoual. At first, thallium was

1323
01:12:01,360 --> 01:12:04,840
Speaker 2: injected into canned meat, and through the use of pseudoops techniques,

1324
01:12:04,960 --> 01:12:07,360
Speaker 2: the poisoned meat was given to insurgents who believed they

1325
01:12:07,360 --> 01:12:10,599
Speaker 2: were being resupplied by other friendly insurgents. In one instance,

1326
01:12:10,600 --> 01:12:13,240
Speaker 2: because of a shortage of food and the tribal trust lands,

1327
01:12:13,360 --> 01:12:16,679
Speaker 2: another deliberate tactic of the Syops unit, the gorillas gave

1328
01:12:16,720 --> 01:12:20,200
Speaker 2: their thallium laced food to innocent villagers, thus killing them.

1329
01:12:20,640 --> 01:12:24,520
Speaker 2: So this is like these last acts are these biological

1330
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:29,840
Speaker 2: terrorist attacks where they're basically giving guys, like giving it

1331
01:12:29,880 --> 01:12:32,840
Speaker 2: groups of insurgents clothes and food that they're supposed to

1332
01:12:32,840 --> 01:12:36,519
Speaker 2: hand to either other insurgents or just starving people in

1333
01:12:36,560 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 2: these tribal reservations that the Rhodesian state created where the

1334
01:12:40,280 --> 01:12:44,040
Speaker 2: land doesn't grow enough food and so when these gorillas

1335
01:12:44,040 --> 01:12:46,680
Speaker 2: start giving food to starving villagers to try to get

1336
01:12:46,720 --> 01:12:49,799
Speaker 2: them on their side. The villagers get poisoned and die.

1337
01:12:49,880 --> 01:12:51,719
Speaker 2: And that's part of the plan is maybe they won't

1338
01:12:51,840 --> 01:12:54,000
Speaker 2: like these militia as much if they think the militia's

1339
01:12:54,040 --> 01:12:57,400
Speaker 2: poisoning them. Let's give the militia poison to give to

1340
01:12:57,439 --> 01:13:01,639
Speaker 2: our own civilians, right like, that's the Rhodesian operating strategy here.

1341
01:13:02,760 --> 01:13:06,240
Speaker 2: Another brilliant scheme involved drilling holes into bottles of water

1342
01:13:06,320 --> 01:13:09,280
Speaker 2: and lacing them with cyanide. On another account, the Sellu

1343
01:13:09,360 --> 01:13:12,200
Speaker 2: scouts laced a well near the Mozambiicon border with an

1344
01:13:12,280 --> 01:13:16,120
Speaker 2: unknown poison, killing at least two hundred civilians. Rhodesha Offer

1345
01:13:16,320 --> 01:13:18,960
Speaker 2: also operated a plan with South African help to supply

1346
01:13:19,000 --> 01:13:23,040
Speaker 2: guerilla fighters with poisoned uniforms. And these are all of

1347
01:13:23,040 --> 01:13:25,960
Speaker 2: these are like horrific war crimes. They're all based on

1348
01:13:25,960 --> 01:13:28,240
Speaker 2: the fact that we don't have bullets anymore because we're

1349
01:13:28,280 --> 01:13:31,000
Speaker 2: not getting trade like we used to have from like

1350
01:13:31,080 --> 01:13:33,800
Speaker 2: South Africa. So all we can do to kill large

1351
01:13:33,880 --> 01:13:36,360
Speaker 2: numbers of people is to poison them, to starve them,

1352
01:13:36,400 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 2: to like spread disease around them. And as their military

1353
01:13:41,439 --> 01:13:44,960
Speaker 2: techniques are growing, increasingly war crimeing and desperate. Smith also

1354
01:13:45,000 --> 01:13:48,599
Speaker 2: starts making increasingly desperate political moves. In March of seventy eight,

1355
01:13:48,640 --> 01:13:51,479
Speaker 2: he allowed the election of a black prime minister. Now

1356
01:13:51,800 --> 01:13:54,200
Speaker 2: this was for show. The fact that there's a prime

1357
01:13:54,240 --> 01:13:56,719
Speaker 2: minister of Rhodesia who's black. Note doesn't mean that Smith

1358
01:13:56,760 --> 01:13:59,840
Speaker 2: isn't still in power, because he still controls the military

1359
01:14:00,080 --> 01:14:03,720
Speaker 2: intelligence agencies. Right, This guy's just there for show, and

1360
01:14:03,800 --> 01:14:07,480
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. The international community still fails to recognize Rhodesia.

1361
01:14:08,120 --> 01:14:11,519
Speaker 2: That summer, militant shoot down a commercial Rhodesian plane and

1362
01:14:11,520 --> 01:14:15,680
Speaker 2: the surviving civilians are butchered by insurgents. Smith's government responds

1363
01:14:15,720 --> 01:14:19,759
Speaker 2: by invading Zambia and Mozambique that October with Rhodesian forces,

1364
01:14:20,200 --> 01:14:23,800
Speaker 2: and again the military parts of this seem to go well.

1365
01:14:23,840 --> 01:14:26,920
Speaker 2: They kill thousands of gorillas, and again they piss off

1366
01:14:26,960 --> 01:14:30,519
Speaker 2: everyone around them and earn international condemnation that cuts them

1367
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:33,600
Speaker 2: off even more from the food and the arms that

1368
01:14:33,640 --> 01:14:35,719
Speaker 2: they need from the people that they had been buying

1369
01:14:35,760 --> 01:14:40,880
Speaker 2: them from. And so outside of the year yeah, huh,

1370
01:14:41,000 --> 01:14:48,160
Speaker 2: seventy eight, seventy nine. By seventy nine, the whole Rhodesian

1371
01:14:48,240 --> 01:14:51,360
Speaker 2: Special Forces are just poisoning for people?

1372
01:14:51,479 --> 01:14:55,320
Speaker 3: Are people not that people? And are people not just

1373
01:14:55,360 --> 01:14:57,640
Speaker 3: like livid about this? Yeah?

1374
01:14:57,720 --> 01:15:02,280
Speaker 2: Yeah they are. There's noreen than ever. They're outnumbered badly.

1375
01:15:02,640 --> 01:15:06,439
Speaker 2: The regular Rhodesian army keeps shrinking because they're getting killed

1376
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:10,240
Speaker 2: and like they don't have the weapons that they need

1377
01:15:10,240 --> 01:15:13,960
Speaker 2: anymore funding in the country who like they don't have

1378
01:15:14,000 --> 01:15:17,360
Speaker 2: any money anymore. That that's why the war has to end, Right?

1379
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:22,840
Speaker 2: Is that because they're not right? Because they've he's broken expensive, right,

1380
01:15:23,120 --> 01:15:28,920
Speaker 2: war's expensive. Eventually, rebels destroy the entire Rhodesian strategic fuel stockpile,

1381
01:15:29,439 --> 01:15:32,679
Speaker 2: which is all kept in one place, and Ian Smith

1382
01:15:32,720 --> 01:15:34,880
Speaker 2: does not and his government just do not have the

1383
01:15:34,960 --> 01:15:38,360
Speaker 2: gas literally and figuratively to continue fighting after night.

1384
01:15:38,520 --> 01:15:39,760
Speaker 3: Written in all this.

1385
01:15:40,439 --> 01:15:42,200
Speaker 2: Kind of sitting back and being like, you guys got

1386
01:15:42,240 --> 01:15:45,120
Speaker 2: to stop doing that. You're using a lot of war crimes.

1387
01:15:45,640 --> 01:15:48,960
Speaker 2: Are those chemical weapons? You guys really better stop? But

1388
01:15:49,200 --> 01:15:52,680
Speaker 2: like they don't you know, send in the RAF or anything. Uh,

1389
01:15:53,400 --> 01:15:56,559
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think it's it is as horrifying as

1390
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:58,080
Speaker 2: that is, and as many people as they kill, it

1391
01:15:58,120 --> 01:16:00,720
Speaker 2: is worth noting because there's always this thing whenever you

1392
01:16:00,800 --> 01:16:04,559
Speaker 2: talk about like these wars that are kind of done

1393
01:16:04,760 --> 01:16:07,040
Speaker 2: similarly or that like that field very similar to the

1394
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:09,360
Speaker 2: Rhodesian bush were like Vietnam, where like there's a lot

1395
01:16:09,400 --> 01:16:10,880
Speaker 2: of Americans will be like, oh, we would have won

1396
01:16:10,920 --> 01:16:12,600
Speaker 2: if we could take the gloves off. It was just

1397
01:16:12,640 --> 01:16:14,760
Speaker 2: those damn liberals in the media didn't let us like

1398
01:16:14,800 --> 01:16:17,200
Speaker 2: fight that we should have fought. There were no gloves

1399
01:16:17,240 --> 01:16:20,919
Speaker 2: for the Rhodesian military. They used all of the forbidden weapons.

1400
01:16:20,920 --> 01:16:25,400
Speaker 2: They used anthrax like, they used fucking thallium, like they

1401
01:16:25,400 --> 01:16:29,280
Speaker 2: were poisoning wells. They did everything you're not supposed to do.

1402
01:16:29,439 --> 01:16:32,519
Speaker 2: They did all of like the hardcore stuff that these

1403
01:16:32,960 --> 01:16:35,360
Speaker 2: like fascists think will make sure they win. If they're

1404
01:16:35,400 --> 01:16:37,439
Speaker 2: just tough enough, we can win a war. And they

1405
01:16:37,520 --> 01:16:41,920
Speaker 2: lost really badly, like because they didn't. They never knew

1406
01:16:41,960 --> 01:16:43,960
Speaker 2: how to win. They never had a plan for winning.

1407
01:16:44,200 --> 01:16:45,800
Speaker 2: All they had a plan to do was kill people

1408
01:16:45,880 --> 01:16:50,240
Speaker 2: until they stopped fighting. And that never works, right. So

1409
01:16:51,760 --> 01:16:55,560
Speaker 2: as things start to collapse, Ian Smith reaches out increasingly

1410
01:16:55,600 --> 01:16:58,120
Speaker 2: to what had become his most reliable foreign supporters, the

1411
01:16:58,160 --> 01:17:01,759
Speaker 2: global white supremacist far right. By the late nineteen seventies,

1412
01:17:01,760 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 2: the white population of Rhodesia was already a diaspora composed

1413
01:17:05,000 --> 01:17:08,760
Speaker 2: not just of British colonists, but Portuguese and afrikaaners who

1414
01:17:08,920 --> 01:17:11,640
Speaker 2: decided that their own homes weren't quite white enough, and

1415
01:17:11,680 --> 01:17:14,400
Speaker 2: that Rhodesia was the place to fight for white Africa.

1416
01:17:15,000 --> 01:17:17,519
Speaker 2: And so Smith's idea again was like, why can't we

1417
01:17:17,600 --> 01:17:20,800
Speaker 2: try getting other white racists. We are there enough of

1418
01:17:20,840 --> 01:17:24,479
Speaker 2: them to fill out our country, right, And so he

1419
01:17:24,560 --> 01:17:27,360
Speaker 2: takes advantage to the fact that both there's a lot

1420
01:17:27,400 --> 01:17:30,800
Speaker 2: of white journalists in media in like the US that

1421
01:17:30,880 --> 01:17:33,959
Speaker 2: will report the way he likes to frame the conflict

1422
01:17:34,040 --> 01:17:37,400
Speaker 2: is if this is really an anti communist campaign, right,

1423
01:17:37,680 --> 01:17:40,040
Speaker 2: And you can see that even in the New York Times.

1424
01:17:40,040 --> 01:17:42,200
Speaker 2: I found a nineteen seventy six article by the New

1425
01:17:42,280 --> 01:17:47,120
Speaker 2: York Times that's not like super pro Rodesia, but here's

1426
01:17:47,120 --> 01:17:51,840
Speaker 2: how it describes like Ian Smith's Rhodesia in nineteen seventy six,

1427
01:17:52,400 --> 01:17:55,639
Speaker 2: the white Rhodesian resents any comparison between the race attitudes

1428
01:17:55,640 --> 01:17:58,120
Speaker 2: in his country and those of the powerful africaner run

1429
01:17:58,200 --> 01:18:01,720
Speaker 2: Republic of South Africa. In the Rhodesians have the paternalistic

1430
01:18:01,760 --> 01:18:03,840
Speaker 2: view of the non European which allows in the very

1431
01:18:03,880 --> 01:18:06,880
Speaker 2: long run, for black participation. When he has reached our

1432
01:18:06,920 --> 01:18:10,880
Speaker 2: standards in a century or so, not for Salisbury or Bolowio,

1433
01:18:10,960 --> 01:18:14,280
Speaker 2: those nasty whites only signs and hotels and other public institutions.

1434
01:18:14,439 --> 01:18:17,439
Speaker 2: Instead the more discreet right of admission reserved, which any

1435
01:18:17,479 --> 01:18:20,920
Speaker 2: black Rhodesian ignores at his peril. Most true Rhodesians will

1436
01:18:20,960 --> 01:18:24,240
Speaker 2: insist that the harsher racial attitudes are the monopoly of

1437
01:18:23,800 --> 01:18:26,720
Speaker 2: the newer immigrants, those who settled to take advantage of

1438
01:18:26,760 --> 01:18:30,360
Speaker 2: the post war bloom in the tobacco industry in Rhodesia. Basically, Oh,

1439
01:18:30,439 --> 01:18:33,800
Speaker 2: the racists came in after Ian like started opening it

1440
01:18:33,880 --> 01:18:35,519
Speaker 2: up to the rest of the world. Like, we weren't

1441
01:18:35,520 --> 01:18:37,840
Speaker 2: as racist until like the late stages of the war.

1442
01:18:38,040 --> 01:18:40,280
Speaker 5: Also different because we infantilize them.

1443
01:18:40,400 --> 01:18:44,439
Speaker 2: So because we different. Yeah, we didn't.

1444
01:18:44,360 --> 01:18:46,240
Speaker 4: Hate them, We just didn't believe that they were real

1445
01:18:46,320 --> 01:18:48,080
Speaker 4: people that could govern themselves.

1446
01:18:48,320 --> 01:18:50,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was it wasn't until later that the

1447
01:18:50,320 --> 01:18:53,960
Speaker 2: racists came in, you know. And for an idea of

1448
01:18:54,000 --> 01:18:56,639
Speaker 2: the ads that Ian's putting out desperately in this period

1449
01:18:56,680 --> 01:18:58,360
Speaker 2: of time, Sothy's going to have one on the screen

1450
01:18:58,520 --> 01:19:01,479
Speaker 2: that's a very famous Rhodesian army ad from the late seventies,

1451
01:19:01,479 --> 01:19:04,560
Speaker 2: and these would run in US magazines like Soldier of Fortune.

1452
01:19:04,800 --> 01:19:06,960
Speaker 2: It just be a man amongst men, And there's like

1453
01:19:07,000 --> 01:19:09,599
Speaker 2: a guy in Camo with a rifle and it says

1454
01:19:09,640 --> 01:19:12,320
Speaker 2: Rhodesian Army. You know. That was their motto, like be

1455
01:19:12,400 --> 01:19:14,360
Speaker 2: a man amongst men in the Rhodesia. You could really

1456
01:19:14,360 --> 01:19:18,040
Speaker 2: be a man in Rhodesia, you know. And this takes

1457
01:19:18,040 --> 01:19:21,080
Speaker 2: off really well within like the US far right. There's

1458
01:19:21,160 --> 01:19:24,960
Speaker 2: like a cottage industry and people coming back from Rhodesia

1459
01:19:25,000 --> 01:19:27,920
Speaker 2: with their stories of Oh I fought for this unit,

1460
01:19:28,040 --> 01:19:30,559
Speaker 2: or I participated in this firefight, and you know, I

1461
01:19:30,560 --> 01:19:33,439
Speaker 2: got to fight the communists, and people will write these

1462
01:19:33,880 --> 01:19:38,000
Speaker 2: these like like honestly, these kind of like pornographic stories

1463
01:19:38,040 --> 01:19:40,800
Speaker 2: of like participating in violence on behalf of like this

1464
01:19:40,920 --> 01:19:45,040
Speaker 2: colonial settlers society in Africa. And it was very much

1465
01:19:45,280 --> 01:19:48,040
Speaker 2: the appeal to a lot of these American racists is

1466
01:19:48,640 --> 01:19:51,559
Speaker 2: this is a place that's like the Confederacy would have

1467
01:19:51,560 --> 01:19:55,240
Speaker 2: been if it were still around. Right. There's a good

1468
01:19:55,280 --> 01:19:57,200
Speaker 2: article in Jacob and by Kyle Burke on all of

1469
01:19:57,240 --> 01:20:00,280
Speaker 2: this that looks at that kind of describes a little

1470
01:20:00,320 --> 01:20:02,840
Speaker 2: bit like the American friends of Rhodesia in this period

1471
01:20:02,880 --> 01:20:05,920
Speaker 2: of time, William F. Buckley had even helped organize a

1472
01:20:05,920 --> 01:20:09,440
Speaker 2: propaganda campaign noticed known as the Friends of Rhodesian Independence,

1473
01:20:09,479 --> 01:20:11,720
Speaker 2: which worked hand in hand with the Rhodesian government to

1474
01:20:11,760 --> 01:20:15,080
Speaker 2: popularize Rhodesia's cause in the United States, but nothing seemed

1475
01:20:15,120 --> 01:20:17,600
Speaker 2: to work. The growing war, coupled with US, British and

1476
01:20:17,720 --> 01:20:21,360
Speaker 2: UN sanctions, imperiled Rhodesia's future. If it fell, then communists

1477
01:20:21,400 --> 01:20:24,280
Speaker 2: would take over as an Angola. That alone troubled right

1478
01:20:24,320 --> 01:20:27,360
Speaker 2: wing Americans, but perhaps even more disc againstconcerting was the

1479
01:20:27,400 --> 01:20:30,160
Speaker 2: result of the US government, especially the CIA, which had

1480
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:32,800
Speaker 2: been hamstrung by a series of scandals and investigations that

1481
01:20:32,920 --> 01:20:35,719
Speaker 2: rocked the intelligence community in the mid seventies. The state

1482
01:20:35,760 --> 01:20:38,280
Speaker 2: appeared both unstable and unwilling to reverse the spread of

1483
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:41,000
Speaker 2: communism in Africa. When the CIA had mounted a covert

1484
01:20:41,040 --> 01:20:44,559
Speaker 2: action against Angola's Marxists in late nineteen seventy five, Democrats

1485
01:20:44,600 --> 01:20:46,600
Speaker 2: and Congress shut it down within a few months. The

1486
01:20:46,680 --> 01:20:49,960
Speaker 2: West isn't doing its job, when American Mercenary lamented, the

1487
01:20:50,080 --> 01:20:52,639
Speaker 2: US especially isn't doing its job. If they're too scared

1488
01:20:52,640 --> 01:20:54,560
Speaker 2: to fight the Communists, then people like me have to

1489
01:20:54,600 --> 01:20:57,160
Speaker 2: act independently. I consider it my duty to fight in

1490
01:20:57,240 --> 01:21:00,280
Speaker 2: Rhodesia after Vietnam and Angola. We can't afford to lose

1491
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:05,040
Speaker 2: any other countries. Wow, we did, we did, We just did.

1492
01:21:05,320 --> 01:21:08,080
Speaker 2: None of these guys, these handful of white Americans who

1493
01:21:08,120 --> 01:21:09,759
Speaker 2: came over to None of this was enough to prop

1494
01:21:09,760 --> 01:21:12,040
Speaker 2: the state up. It never could have been. That was

1495
01:21:12,200 --> 01:21:15,920
Speaker 2: always a fantasy. For one thing, Ian was reliant upon

1496
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:18,920
Speaker 2: there just being this massive population of Americans who were

1497
01:21:18,960 --> 01:21:21,960
Speaker 2: raised the way he was on, like heroic stories of

1498
01:21:22,040 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 2: colonial warriors fighting crowds of Zulus, and those people just

1499
01:21:25,920 --> 01:21:29,439
Speaker 2: didn't exist. You know, there's some racists, but even most

1500
01:21:29,479 --> 01:21:32,360
Speaker 2: of the racists didn't want to move to Africa to

1501
01:21:32,560 --> 01:21:36,240
Speaker 2: die fighting in a bush war, like for your stupid

1502
01:21:36,320 --> 01:21:40,799
Speaker 2: racist country. By nineteen seventy nine, an estimated forty thousand

1503
01:21:40,800 --> 01:21:43,760
Speaker 2: people had died in Ian Smith's Bush War, tens of

1504
01:21:43,840 --> 01:21:48,120
Speaker 2: thousands had been imprisoned. Margaret Thatcher, the incoming British Prime Minister,

1505
01:21:48,200 --> 01:21:50,240
Speaker 2: made it clear to Smith that it was well past

1506
01:21:50,320 --> 01:21:53,000
Speaker 2: time he and his compatriots fuck off into the sunset,

1507
01:21:53,200 --> 01:21:56,519
Speaker 2: and ultimately they did. The plan was for a freely

1508
01:21:56,560 --> 01:22:01,000
Speaker 2: elected parliament, and with universal suffrage, whites would guaranteed twenty

1509
01:22:01,080 --> 01:22:03,519
Speaker 2: of the hundred seats in Parliament, which is not you know,

1510
01:22:03,640 --> 01:22:07,599
Speaker 2: even free right. That's still unfairly biased towards the white people.

1511
01:22:07,880 --> 01:22:11,680
Speaker 2: But they're still unhappy with this right. And you know,

1512
01:22:11,800 --> 01:22:15,400
Speaker 2: the man who replaces Smith ultimately is an equally ill

1513
01:22:15,400 --> 01:22:19,760
Speaker 2: omened monster. Rabut Mugabi wins the first Zimbabwe elections in

1514
01:22:19,840 --> 01:22:23,120
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. You've probably heard of his name. He is

1515
01:22:23,240 --> 01:22:25,280
Speaker 2: not a good guy. He's a he was originally a

1516
01:22:25,320 --> 01:22:28,280
Speaker 2: school teacher, but he becomes like a Marxist organizer and

1517
01:22:28,320 --> 01:22:30,439
Speaker 2: gets locked up by Smith in sixty four, and he

1518
01:22:30,479 --> 01:22:33,400
Speaker 2: goes on once he takes over. He's a horrible dictator

1519
01:22:33,439 --> 01:22:36,000
Speaker 2: and he destroys a lot of Zimbabwe as a result.

1520
01:22:36,080 --> 01:22:38,960
Speaker 2: A lot of like the society that exists, is ruined

1521
01:22:39,000 --> 01:22:43,040
Speaker 2: by his kleptocratic regime. However, his regime number one when

1522
01:22:43,040 --> 01:22:46,439
Speaker 2: it comes to power inherits the security state that Ian

1523
01:22:46,479 --> 01:22:49,639
Speaker 2: Smith had set up. All of like the guns, all

1524
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:52,639
Speaker 2: of these different like legal institutes that had been created

1525
01:22:52,680 --> 01:22:55,479
Speaker 2: to allow him Smith to lock up his political enemies.

1526
01:22:55,800 --> 01:22:59,400
Speaker 2: All that still in existence when mcgabi gets into power,

1527
01:22:59,400 --> 01:23:02,000
Speaker 2: and mcgabi uses a lot of the state that Smith

1528
01:23:02,040 --> 01:23:05,600
Speaker 2: had built to create his own dictatorship right now. The

1529
01:23:05,640 --> 01:23:08,400
Speaker 2: other thing is that mcgabi himself was partly a product

1530
01:23:08,680 --> 01:23:12,599
Speaker 2: of Smith's horrific war. Mcgabi was arrested in nineteen sixty

1531
01:23:12,640 --> 01:23:16,000
Speaker 2: four and spent ten years brutally imprisoned by the Rhodesian

1532
01:23:16,040 --> 01:23:21,679
Speaker 2: government because he was a political organizer advocating for like nationalism, right,

1533
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:26,120
Speaker 2: And he's even like three years into his prison sentence,

1534
01:23:26,360 --> 01:23:30,519
Speaker 2: Mcgabi's young son gets sick and is like and dies,

1535
01:23:30,640 --> 01:23:33,320
Speaker 2: and Mcgabi begs to be given leave to attend his

1536
01:23:33,439 --> 01:23:36,560
Speaker 2: boy's funerals, like three year old kid's funeral, and in

1537
01:23:36,680 --> 01:23:39,240
Speaker 2: Smith is like, now, fuck you. Right. So when mcgabi

1538
01:23:39,280 --> 01:23:42,320
Speaker 2: gets freed in seventy four, initially as like a peace

1539
01:23:42,760 --> 01:23:47,760
Speaker 2: overture by Smith's desperate government, he's not super happy or

1540
01:23:47,840 --> 01:23:50,240
Speaker 2: is he like a really well adjusted guy. And by

1541
01:23:50,280 --> 01:23:52,439
Speaker 2: the time that he swept into power in nineteen eighty

1542
01:23:52,720 --> 01:23:55,639
Speaker 2: both he inherits this like brutal and powerful police state

1543
01:23:55,680 --> 01:23:58,080
Speaker 2: built by Smith to wage the Bush War. But he's

1544
01:23:58,120 --> 01:24:02,200
Speaker 2: also become like very much an angry brutal man himself

1545
01:24:02,240 --> 01:24:05,360
Speaker 2: in the process of surviving and winning this Bush War.

1546
01:24:05,800 --> 01:24:09,080
Speaker 2: And so yeah, his dictatorship is pretty brutal and terrific

1547
01:24:09,439 --> 01:24:12,160
Speaker 2: and is also part of the dictatorship in a lot

1548
01:24:12,200 --> 01:24:15,720
Speaker 2: of ways that Smith establishes right. The fact that Mugabi

1549
01:24:15,800 --> 01:24:19,439
Speaker 2: is so awful and ruins the country even more is

1550
01:24:19,479 --> 01:24:23,320
Speaker 2: a continuation of the desperately bad policies that Smith had

1551
01:24:23,320 --> 01:24:28,080
Speaker 2: pushed that started ruining the country. Right. For his part,

1552
01:24:28,320 --> 01:24:30,559
Speaker 2: Smith spent the rest of his life living in Hirare,

1553
01:24:30,760 --> 01:24:34,840
Speaker 2: which had been Salisbury and is the capital of now Zimbabwe.

1554
01:24:35,000 --> 01:24:38,720
Speaker 2: After Mugave wins and Mugabi actually leaves him alone, like

1555
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:41,479
Speaker 2: he's allowed to live his life. He keeps a nice

1556
01:24:41,479 --> 01:24:45,720
Speaker 2: house like ten years on his land gets appropriated by

1557
01:24:45,760 --> 01:24:49,519
Speaker 2: the government, but he lives out his life for years

1558
01:24:49,840 --> 01:24:54,040
Speaker 2: in Zimbabwe as a freeman. Periodically Mcgabi would like threaten him,

1559
01:24:54,200 --> 01:24:56,160
Speaker 2: you know, to be like, oh, I'm going to prosecute

1560
01:24:56,200 --> 01:24:58,600
Speaker 2: him for war crimes or something whenever his own popularity

1561
01:24:58,720 --> 01:25:02,360
Speaker 2: was low. But you know, he's able to live out

1562
01:25:02,360 --> 01:25:05,680
Speaker 2: his life and he never apologizes. He never apologizes for

1563
01:25:05,720 --> 01:25:10,760
Speaker 2: the atrocities. Yeah. Yeah, And in fact, when he was

1564
01:25:10,800 --> 01:25:13,760
Speaker 2: interviewed in the year two thousand in The Guardian by

1565
01:25:13,800 --> 01:25:17,040
Speaker 2: Sandra Jordan about like do you feel bad about all

1566
01:25:17,080 --> 01:25:19,280
Speaker 2: the people you killed. Smith said that he had no

1567
01:25:19,320 --> 01:25:22,240
Speaker 2: regrets about the thirty thousand or so Zimbabweans killed during

1568
01:25:22,280 --> 01:25:25,280
Speaker 2: his rule. Quote, the more we killed, the happier we were.

1569
01:25:25,600 --> 01:25:27,080
Speaker 2: We were fighting terrorists.

1570
01:25:27,160 --> 01:25:29,519
Speaker 5: Yeah, happier you were cool.

1571
01:25:29,560 --> 01:25:32,800
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, the happier you were, which is why you

1572
01:25:32,840 --> 01:25:36,080
Speaker 2: lost the country because most people weren't happy. Thank you.

1573
01:25:36,160 --> 01:25:38,440
Speaker 3: Yes, city at least die of something horrific.

1574
01:25:39,320 --> 01:25:45,160
Speaker 2: Hey, he dies like he does forever. It's yeah, he

1575
01:25:45,200 --> 01:25:47,040
Speaker 2: doesn't live forever. I can give you that much. Is

1576
01:25:47,080 --> 01:25:49,759
Speaker 2: he He does not wind up being like our first

1577
01:25:49,800 --> 01:25:53,679
Speaker 2: immortal cool, but he has like a long retirement. Yeah,

1578
01:25:53,720 --> 01:25:57,040
Speaker 2: he travels again, he's a free person. He gets to

1579
01:25:57,120 --> 01:25:59,880
Speaker 2: visit like South Africa. He lives into the fucking tooth.

1580
01:26:00,439 --> 01:26:02,760
Speaker 2: He dies in Cape Town in two thousand and seven

1581
01:26:02,800 --> 01:26:04,519
Speaker 2: at age eighty eight after a stroke.

1582
01:26:04,920 --> 01:26:07,920
Speaker 3: Right, so it's too long, you know, he lived too long.

1583
01:26:08,680 --> 01:26:10,760
Speaker 2: Yep, he lived way too fucking long.

1584
01:26:12,280 --> 01:26:15,440
Speaker 3: Anyway, it was buddies with Kissinger.

1585
01:26:16,240 --> 01:26:16,519
Speaker 6: Yep.

1586
01:26:17,400 --> 01:26:20,560
Speaker 2: Well, he didn't like Kissinger, but he didn't like anybody,

1587
01:26:20,960 --> 01:26:24,759
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, he's he's a real piece of shit. Anyway.

1588
01:26:25,760 --> 01:26:26,439
Speaker 2: How are you feeling?

1589
01:26:26,720 --> 01:26:28,960
Speaker 3: Yeah? Bad, lovely?

1590
01:26:29,720 --> 01:26:34,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well that's the story of how Rhodesha became Zimbabwe

1591
01:26:34,439 --> 01:26:37,400
Speaker 2: and how Ian Smith became a dead person. Becca, you

1592
01:26:37,439 --> 01:26:38,920
Speaker 2: want to plug your pluggables at the end of here.

1593
01:26:39,600 --> 01:26:42,439
Speaker 5: Well that was a lovely episode. Thanks you guys for

1594
01:26:42,479 --> 01:26:42,920
Speaker 5: having me.

1595
01:26:44,280 --> 01:26:48,200
Speaker 4: You can find me and follow me at bex peccs

1596
01:26:48,400 --> 01:26:52,040
Speaker 4: ramos on all platforms, and you can find my podcast

1597
01:26:52,120 --> 01:26:55,519
Speaker 4: Welcome to al Barrio wherever you stream your podcast.

1598
01:26:55,560 --> 01:26:57,360
Speaker 5: It is not video, it is audio only. I should

1599
01:26:57,360 --> 01:26:58,360
Speaker 5: say when I say stream.

1600
01:26:58,680 --> 01:27:01,200
Speaker 4: But and you can can find and follow us on

1601
01:27:01,240 --> 01:27:04,679
Speaker 4: Instagram at Welcome to El Barrio and you can email

1602
01:27:04,760 --> 01:27:07,280
Speaker 4: us at Welcome to El barriogmail dot com with any

1603
01:27:07,600 --> 01:27:10,759
Speaker 4: if you have Puerto Rican guest suggestions, your own barrio

1604
01:27:10,840 --> 01:27:11,760
Speaker 4: stories and etc.

1605
01:27:13,040 --> 01:27:16,920
Speaker 2: Awesome, well check that out and uh yeah, folks, we'll

1606
01:27:16,960 --> 01:27:19,360
Speaker 2: be back next week with something I don't know what yet.

1607
01:27:19,800 --> 01:27:22,160
Speaker 2: Don't don't hassle me. I'll figure it out in time.

1608
01:27:22,920 --> 01:27:26,120
Speaker 3: Maybe.

1609
01:27:26,760 --> 01:27:29,360
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1610
01:27:29,479 --> 01:27:32,160
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1611
01:27:32,200 --> 01:27:35,400
Speaker 1: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1612
01:27:35,439 --> 01:27:39,799
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video episodes,

1613
01:27:39,840 --> 01:27:42,479
Speaker 1: but Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, dropping

1614
01:27:42,520 --> 01:27:45,400
Speaker 1: every Tuesday and Thursday. Pit Remind me on Netflix you

1615
01:27:45,439 --> 01:27:48,919
Speaker 1: don't miss an episode. For clips in our older episode catalog,

1616
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:52,240
Speaker 1: continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel YouTube dot com

1617
01:27:52,280 --> 01:27:56,200
Speaker 1: slash at Behind the Bastards. We love about forty percent

1618
01:27:56,240 --> 01:27:57,719
Speaker 1: of you, statistically speaking,