I don’t do Remembrance Day very well. It’s a good thing in principle - an opportunity to remember those who have given their lives on behalf of their country. It’s difficult, though, for those who fought - it stirs up memories of events as well as people. For me, it brings back memories of events and friends who died in a self-serving, grubby defence of colonial robbery on a pretty grand scale!
That’s the story of Rhodesia - and now Zimbabwe. Land grab. Scene 1 is Cecil Rhodes, with his dream of painting Africa red (the colour of the British Empire) from Cape to Cairo. Imagine that - “Let’s own Africa!” Imagine being an ordinary black Zimbabwean. One day a group of white people arrive from a place you didn’t even know existed, heavily armed. They take your land and build a magnificent country (and Rhodesia was magnificent) - a country, though, in which your job is to live as a servant.
Scene 2 - enter Ian Smith. He comes to power in 1963 on a platform of “no racial integration” at a time when Britain is divesting itself of its colonies because they’ve become too politically expensive. This is as much of a land grab as Mugabe’s. It’s no less ruthlessly defended. The only difference is that it’s justified by efficiency - a strong economy, with phones that work and trains that run on time. But it’s robbery. And my generation is sent by my government, my parents and my church to kill and die for it. We’re to preserve Rhodesia for the whites at all costs.
That’s not what we’re told, of course! We’re told we’re fighting to preserve Christian democratic civilisation against the southward march of global, godless Communist expansionism. And so we go to war - bravely, brightly and sacrificially. We give our lives - and our futures. We grow old at 19 - old in things that no human being should have to grow old in. We grow old in memories that haunt those of us who survive - memories that resurface every 11 November.
I survived. I “did my bit”. And they gave me a medal - not for bravery, but simply to remind (as if I could ever forget) that I was there and part of it all. A medal - or an accusation? After all, look whose face is on it: Cecil John Rhodes!
