Racism, can it work both ways?

This then was the Matabele King, Lobengula, offspring of Mzilikazi, when the first white man arrived here on his journey from South Africa. Prior to the arrival of the Zulu impi brought here by Mzilikazi, this part of Africa was home to the Bushman. A very small, nomadic hunter. What happened to them? The same thing that always happens when one encounters a superior force. They were driven off.

In time this offshoot who broke away from Shaka Zulu's reign became known as the Matabele. Fierce brave they were and fierce proud they were too. It was a subsistence existence, made more lively from sporadic raids further North into the kingdom of the Shona, who were no match for these warriors, but who had also decimated the Bushmen. Here the Matabele stole their women and their cattle and returned home. Such is life.

Here then is Cecil John Rhodes who left England due to ill health and went to Africa where the dryer climate helped his health. Whilst there in South Africa he amassed stupendous wealth at the Kimberly diamond mine and the Witwatersrand. An extremely powerful man and well known Anglophile who believed passionately in England.

As head of the British South Africa Mining company, he was looking for new avenues to explore and his lifelong dream was to build a rail-road from the Cape to Cairo. He had heard the stories about Mzilikazi and decided to follow it up by taking a trip further North to assess its mineral wealth. Obviously he had scouted it out and a meeting had been arranged for him to talk with the Matabele king, Lobengula.

At this meeting he arranged the rights to explore and mine the area with the complete approval of the King. Thus began the white mans foothold in what was eventually to become known as Rhodesia, Southern Rhodesia, Zimbabwe Rhodesia and Zimbabwe at different times in its history. He sweetened the deal by offering Lobengula certain colourful trinkets and beads.

To get the full story if you wish, just click on the photo. To the best of my knowledge the whites always left these people alone and worked around them as they did with the Shona in Mashonaland. However people are touchy and like to defend what is theirs. Accordingly the Matabele went to war and tried to surprise the whites and after being defeated they tried again at a later stage, this time with the help of the Shona. Once again they were defeated. Small odds overwhelmed vast numbers, due mainly to more advanced weaponry. Once again such is life.

Westminster here in this photo was completed in 1870 and the Matabele went to war against people from this nation twenty six years later. It hardly seems credible? No one doubted their bravery for one minute and they earned deep respect for this. However the perception remained that they were sly and couldn't be trusted. As each generation was lost to the next and life got easier for each one. People began to forget that when they first arrived everyone was on the same footing more or less. So a slow process began of thinking one was far superior to the other one.

Now then here it begins with this man and his cohorts. I've said it before and I'm going to say it again, I was so proud to be Rhodesian and I always will be. Part of the reason for this is. We were one of the few countries in the world who never decimated our indigenous population. Despite the fact that we were quite capable of doing this. No, we looked after them. Admittedly perhaps we could have speeded up the process but then again, who knows?

I've often wondered why the free world could never see this, or could they? One also has to understand, who was it who armed this culture when they were not capable of doing this themselves? Why it was the Russians and the Chinese. Of what interest could they have for them? Their free societies, their ideologies, these ideologies which systematically slaughtered over 100 million of their own people? Why should they want to help the black people, it makes no sense? Yet the free world fell for this and consequently ruined a perfectly beautiful little country in central Africa and a perfectly, beautiful people on all sides, white, black, Indian and in-between. How sad.

This then was the man who made reverse racism a fine art. He started slowly, flexing his muscles and built it up into a crescendo. He brought in North Korean troops to train his sixth brigade and when they were ready, he let them loose on the Matabele and committed genocide of the highest order, and when the people finally tired of him, he let loose his war veterans and set them loose on the white farming population. I had personal friends who were beaten to death in front of their wives and daughters, because they voted. Now seeing as your vote is secret. How did they know who he voted for? They didn't, it was just another excuse to let loose his thugs again to preserve his power. The police stood by and did nothing.

This lens is long enough, but I'm going to pen a series of lenses describing what happened in this country, that will chill you to the bone. I had a black farm manager and what happened to his son in that stupid war in the Congo will shock you all. I started this lens by saying that every country has good people and bad people and all the in betweens. Isn't about time, all the good people came together and put this monster to bed once and for all. Racism, really? What about reverse racism?