April 18 – Independence Day in Zimbabwe

By Michael Knox

April 18, 2016

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nPostednon April 18, 2016

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nZimbabwenisn’t quite as large as the state of California – and yet it has 16nofficial languages!

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nWe’rentalking Chewa, Chibarwe, English, Kalanga, Koisan, Nambya, Ndau,nNdebele, Shangani, Shona, sign language, Sotho, Tonga, Tswana, Venda,nand Xhosa.

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nDidnyou notice “English” in the list? That’s because Zimbabwe used tonbe a colony of the United Kingdom – until this date in 1980. n

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Actually,nthe land that we now know as Zimbabwe was known as Southern Rhodesianwhen it was a British colony, and its colonial government was run bynthe white minority. Southern Rhodesia provided more soldiers, perncapita, fighting for the British Empire in both World War I and WorldnWar II than any other nation – including Britain itself. But afternthe wars, instead of awarding the African land its independence, thenBritish glommed together Southern Rhodesia with Northern Rhodesia andnNyasaland (now Malawi) in what they called the Central AfricannFederation. This was against the wishes of the African residents ofnthose lands, and after a decade of tumult, Britain dissolved thenUnion. n

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nNorthernnRhodesia became independent and renamed itself Zambia. The leader ofnSouthern Rhodesia, a fellow named Ian Smith, convinced his governmentnto also declared independence and to drop “Southern” from thencountry’s name – they lived in the only “Rhodesia” now. But thenBrits didn’t go along with this declaration of independence (any morenthan they had hundreds of years earlier gone along with the AmericannDeclaration). Britain didn’t go to war over the colony’s “rebellion,”nbut instead went to the United Nations and convinced the world to putnsanctions on the new government, including a trade embargo. In othernwords, other nations wouldn’t buy stuff from Rhodesia, and theynwouldn’t sell stuff to Rhodesia.

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nInnthe meantime, the black majority in Rhodesia weren’t happy withnSmith’s government, either, and there was a civil war, fought mostlynwith guerrilla tactics like ambushes, sabotage, hit-and-run attacks,netc. (This is in contrast to the usual pitched battles and sieges ofnnormal warfare.) n

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nSo…badnstuff. Strife and warfare, violence and poverty. Eventually a peacenagreement was drawn up, and the world – even Britain – finallynrecognized the nation as an independent, self-governing country onnthis date in 1980.

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nAndnof course, the new nation changed its name to Zimbabwe.

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nInhate to break it to you, but since 1980, Zimbabwe hasn’t been a placenof democracy and human flourishing. It has been led by just onenauthoritarian president / prime minister for all these years—and henkeeps getting re-elected among rumors of election fraud andnvote-rigging. There have been horrible problems with poor livingnstandards and health care, and there have been terrible human-rightsnabuses, including torture and massacres of citizens.

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nIt’snhard to celebrate the nation that has such a terrible past andnpresent, but here are some totally amazing, wonderful, beautiful things to see in Zimbabwe:

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