Rhodesia

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The Rhodie thread died, but I'm bringing it back, damn it.

Frenchie, if you're still around, my reply:

Now I'm sure all the Rhodies and Saffers can correct me, but Rhodesia was just a pretty nice place. Not perfect, but it really seemed to be going places. While the rest of Africa fell into disarray of varying degrees, ranging from simple corruption and poverty to outright genocide, Rhodesia kept chugging along, despite the sanctions. They had a working civil service, low corruption, rule of law, an outright booming economy and while the Whites, having settled a pretty damn underdeveloped land, had the best pickings, a black middle class was forming and a non-Marxist, non-violent and democratically-minded Black political conscious was developing. The were also able to run a system where the blacks didn't have to be segregated for the nation to be a success, as the National Party in South Africa thought. I can even make out the beginnings of a sort of similar coexistence as the Anglo Kiwis and Maoris have, where they freely borrow from each others cultures to create a unified whole, with things like military unit mottos written in Shona and children singing African songs in school.

I suspect that, with a little rose tint, Rhodies see the time between UDI and Lancaster House as a sort of long pleasantly warm summer before the autumn storms and bleak winter of Mugabe.