Zimbabwe, formally known as Southern Rhodesia, is a country in Southern Africa. It gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1965. It also later changed from a country led by a white minority to an African leadership. These political changes brought many economic and social changes with them.
Before the arrival of the British, native African tribes called the Shona and Ndebele populated Zimbabwe. In 1888, colonist Cecil Rhodes came to the region and purchased mining rights from the Ndebele people. By 1898, the region became known as Southern Rhodesia in honor of Cecil Rhodes and a British sphere of influence. The colony gained self from the British in 1922 but remained apart of the British Empire for another thirty years.
By the 1960’s, Southern Rhodesia’s neighbor, Northern Rhodesia had gained its independence and is now known as Zambia. This event increased the Africans’ demands for more political rights and the whites’ demands for independence. The Prime Minister at that time, Winston Field, was accused of moving too slowly towards independence and was later replaced by his deputy, Ian Smith. During the 1965 election, Smith led the Rhodesian Front Party to win majority vote over the moderate Europeans who opposed a move for independence.
With Rhodesians having most of the power, the UK was more inclined to grant it independence but was still hindered because of their unwillingness to give the black
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majority rule, a policy used in the British colonies at the time This led to many negotiations with the UK that tu...
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...pering with the votes. Mugabe is now in his 80’s and still in power.
The Zimbabwean economy is currently in a very poor state with half the population unemployed and the value of a Zimbabwean dollar has declined. The main reasons the for the decline is the problems in the agricultural sector caused by land distribution, many droughts, and the mass infections of HIV/AIDS in the workforce (iExplore). The failed economy also led to a failed education system. Many teachers have quit their jobs and students do not have proper school supplies.
This is how Zimbabwe has changed politically, economically, and socially since 1945. Like many other African nations, these changes came after it gained independence from an imperialistic country. Unfortunately, like other African nations, the country was left with a weak economy and government.
The American colonists’ disagreements with British policymakers lead to the colonist’s belief that the policies imposed on them violated of their constitutional rights and their colonial charters. These policies that were imposed on the colonist came with outcome like established new boundaries, new internal and external taxes, unnecessary and cruel punishment, and taxation without representation. British policymakers enforcing Acts of Parliament, or policies, that ultimately lead in the colonist civil unrest, outbreak of hostilities, and the colonist prepared to declare their independence.
Images of whiteness in Zimbabwe projected in the media have been of white population as victims being disposed of land and exposed to violence. In the award-winning documentary, Mugabe and the White African, the film focuses on white Zimbabwean family who challenges the Fast Track land redistribution program. David McDermott Hughes’ interprets the perspectives of land and landscape and its origins. In Whiteness in Zimbabwe, David McDermott Hughes principal argument is that European settlers identified themselves with the African landscape rather than with the social characteristics of the native Africans. The importance of landscape to white identity led to the engineering and structural development of the landscape. Hughes contends that the white colonizers used the land, nature and ecology to escape the social problems, to avoid ‘the other’ which in this case was the black Zimbabweans that were sharing the same living space. Through such landscape engineering, the white Zimbabweans believed that they would belong to Zimbabwe and Africa. However, Hugh argues that “by writing themselves to single-mindedly into the landscape, many whites wrote themselves out of society (p. 25).” Furthermore, Hughes argues that this was not a form of racism, but rather escaping the social surrounding to avoid conflict. This concept has led to Hughes to wanting to stop romanticizing of land in order to avoid social issues.
Throughout the twentieth century, Rhodesia from 1960’s to the late 1970’s have always been in a struggle to fight for their independence. They had to deal with the British colonist that settled into their land and had taken over control of the country for the past couple of years. Due to the decolonisation of African countries after the second world war it gave many influences and reasons for Rhodesia to search to become an independent country. That all changed when they fully receive their independence in 1980 and during that time they fought for the control of their country, Rhodesia. The name was later changed to Zimbabwe due to a revolutionary struggle they had in their country. The battle to govern Rhodesia and also by the agreement of the Internal Settlement between the fighting forces to find and create peace
Cecil Rhodes (1853-1902) was the main factor in determining the economic and political structure of today’s Zimbabwe (modern day Rhodesia). In the late 19th century, Cecil Rhodes, along with a multitude of armed white settlers, invaded the country of present-day Zimbabwe. All resistance was crushed and the British South African Company was created; this later became the basis for colonization of the entire country. Once Cecil gained control of the diamond and gold industry, he soon gained political power and eventually became the political leader of the area. He soon after disregarded African rights to the land and developed a mandatory labor in the mines that he created. Soon after, Rhodes controlled 90% of the world’s diamond production under De Beers Consolidated Mines, Ltd. The political dictatorship that Cecil Rhodes initiated at the time was to continue; Rhodes’ political system dominated present-day Zimbabwe under British rulers until 1980 when it finally gained independence. Rhodes started an 80-year rule by corrupt and greedy entrepreneurs who’s only goals were that of personal net worth and complete political dominance.
Dr. Noah Zerbe is a professor and chair of the department of politics at Humboldt State University in California and someone who has spent time in both South Africa and Zimbabwe. Dr. Zerbe goes in depth into the factors that surrounded the 2002 famine in Africa, where 14 million Africans were on the brink of starvation. The Malawi president, just a season before the famine, sold off all of Mal...
In 1990, South Africa became a totalitarian state. Apartheid is still in full effect. There is extensive racial violence in the streets. The country is economically suffering from sanctions from many other countries in protest of Apartheid.
For nearly forty-six years whites ruled South Africa with licit supremacy under Apartheid laws. With roots in its history, the segregation of races reigned from its colonization by the Dutch to the late 1900's when it was weakened by social unrest and financial burden, and finally abolished by Nelson Mandela. The impact of apartheid stood after apartheid's abolition, as non-whites still had unresolved feelings towards those who supported apartheid, but with Mandela's election and the renouncement of apartheid laws, the country could move forward toward creating a "rainbow nation."
Africa in all its existence to Europe has relied on others to decide what’s best for them. Africa is now in a Western style mode. This does not mean it should be there but it is now. The government has to start taking advantage of today’s capitalist economy. Money tends to keep people of all nations happier. With money everyone is guaranteed food, a home and a better chance at democracy.
South Africa has a long history with Europe, the Dutch, Portuguese, and finally the British have controlled this land. The country is home to many different groups, from white to black. South Africa is a new country, liberated by the British in 1934. Its history has been dominated by white power and ignorance. When the British left in 1934, the White South Africans were placed in power, putting them in Apartheid.
"The wind of change is blowing through this [African] continent, and whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it" (Macmillan). This speech, made by the prime minister of England in 1960, highlights the vast changes occurring in Africa at the time. Changes came quickly. Over the next several years, forty-seven African countries attained independence from colonial rule. Many circumstances and events had and were occurring that led to the changes to which he was referring. The decolonization of Africa occurred over time, for a variety of complex reasons, but can be broken down into two major contributing factors: vast changes brought about in the world because of World War II and a growing sense of African nationalism.
In 1884, gold was discovered in the Witwatersrand, which lured thousands of British miners and prospectors to settle in the area. The Afrikaners, who were mainly farmers, didn’t like the newcomers (Uitlanders), so they taxed them and denied them voting rights. The dislike of one another grew, which lead to a revolt by the Uitlanders in Johannesburg against the Afrikaner government. This revolt was instigated by the British colonial statesman and financier Cecil Rhodes, the premier of the Cape Colony, who wanted to bring all of Southern Africa into the British Empire. In December of 1895, Leander Starr Jameson, who was a friend of Rhodes, led a group of 600 armed British men in an attempt to support the Uitlanders in the South African Republic. This was called the Jameson Raid. It resulted in Jameson’s capture and imprisonment, and in Rhodes’s resignation. Jameson later became the premier of the Cape Colony from 1904 to 1908.
The first European to arrive to Great Zimbabwe was a German explorer named Karl Mauch, in 1871. It was Mauch’s friend, Adam Render, who was also German and was living in the tribe of Chief Pika, that has lead him to Great Zimbabwe. When Mauch first saw the ruins, he abruptly concluded that Great Zimbabwe wasn’t erected by Africans. He felt that the handiwork was too delicate and the people who constructed this showed they were way too civilized to have been the work of Africans.
At the end of WWII is when decolonization was brought up as a serious topic of discussion. Over 200,000 Africans had fought in Europe and Asia for the Allies’ freedom and democracy which showed quite the contradiction. They were fighting for something that wasn’t even going to truly benefit them. In 1945 is when the 5th Pan African Conference met to go over the possibility of granting back independence to the colonized areas. Ghana played a significant role during the decolonization process in Africa because Ghana was the first Sub-Saharan African majority government to gain independence in 1957. Not only did Ghana gain independence, but they did this by acting nonviolently. For years following th...
It is clear that there is a negative relationship between HIV/AIDS and growth. HIV/AIDS affects the labour force, it lowers efficiency and productivity and lastly, savings and investment. It is evident that HIV/AIDS had contributed to the downturn of economic growth of Swaziland. This pandemic affected the drivers of economic growth mainly, the foreign direct investment and loss of labour. Due to lower productivity as a result of HIV/AIDS, there is a fall in both private and public savings. A low rate of return on capital discourage Foreign Direct Investment (Haacker, 2003). In addition, HIV/AIDS deter investors as it increased the risk of investing in Swaziland. In 2002, Isaksen et al. (2002) explained how a Taiwanese firm chose Lesotho instead of Swaziland due to the later having high HIV/AIDS
South Africa has a school life expectancy of thirteen years, whereas Zimbabwe’s school life expectancy is around nine years. Both countries have the same literacy rate of age of fifteen or over can read and write. Zimbabwe has the highest unemployment rate in the world, which is at ninety five percent. Part of their high unemployment rate is because of their lack of education, which inhibits their ability to work in the labor field. South Africa has unemployment rate of about fifty percent. There is a big gap between the unemployment rates within the two countries. A big factor for the unemployment rate is that the poverty line affects unemployment. Families who live under the poverty line do not get as good as an education compared to better off families. Sixty eight percent of Zimbabwe is under the poverty line. This causes the inability or less change for those under the poverty level to be able to get a good job in the work force. South Africa has a ...