Commentary Robin Norton 2005 - continued..

As I am only concerned with Rhodesia I will restrict my comments to that country and what has happened since.

Rhodesia was always a far better developed country as compared to its Northern namesake, mainly because it was immediately North of South Africa, a country of enormous natural wealth which had been first settled by Europeans hundreds of years before. Rhodesia's farmlands were very fertile, the population low, in 1890 it is thought that the population was less than one million of all races, this in a country nearly twice the size of the Great Britain. Even by 1950 the population was only 3 million or so, with the better health care and education I mention, an ongoing aim for all 'White' governments, the population continued to increase at a sustainable rate.

In my time in the country, remembering that I left in 1974, population now 5 million, there were things I disagreed with, I was shocked to experience for myself when I attended a friend's wedding in 1973, a 'Black' friend, as I drove him to the reception after the Church ceremony, into a 'Tribal Trust' area, a sign by the side of the road said that 'No White Person was allowed in without a permit' or words to that effect. Needless to say I had no permit, but even though I saw a police land rover I was not challenged and I found out later that in practice the restriction was to prevent any possible troublemakers going in causing problems.

It must be said that I never came across a sign in Rhodesia which said, 'Black people : No Entry'. My great interest in aircraft also led to problems for me, I was interrogated by the Salisbury Airport Security several times to see if I was a spy, I found this very frightening at the age of 18,

the questioning carried out by men I knew, people who I had asked permission to take photographs of the aircraft at the airport in the past. I was not a spy! There are many things I could say, all I do know is that in general the relationship between white and black Rhodesians was good, there were bad 'whites' who treated their black employees badly, but in general the idea for all employees by employers, black or white, was to be fair and improve everyone's living standards. A happy worker is a productive worker, if only that was a sentiment understood by all British employers today!

It is now, some 30 years later that I am saddened and not the least angry at how British Governments and the British Media in the last few decades have transformed history so that to the majority of British people, any white person connected with Rhodesia, all 'White Man's' deeds in that country is or was wrong, if not evil. All white people who went out to Rhodesia or were born there have become pariahs, known as 'White Settlers', a description now used as a form of abuse, on a par in fact with I do not know what. By contrast, at the same time, in recent years, most noticeable in 2004, Germany, the country under Adolf Hitler which started the Second World War, Germany's part and the people of Germany are slowly being written out of 'Media' reporting as having anything to do with the War, the focus is on 'Nazis' starting the War, 'Nazis' bombing Great Britain, 'Nazis' killing six million Jews and responsible for killing many more, the focus is in fact quite often turned onto the British Royal Air Force for bombing Germany as being criminal, forgetting the events leading up to those bombing raids, forgetting also the German Luftwaffe bombing attacks on British cities such as Coventry, Portsmouth, Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton and London to name just a very few.

cont..
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