Thread by @Will_Tanner_1

It's the 59th anniversary of Rhodesia's Independence from the British who were demanding their self-destruction in the name of mass democracy

But why did Rhodesia declare independence on the 11th of November, 1965?

Few actually seem to know, so it's time to explain in the 🧵👇

By 1965, Rhodesia had been independent from the British South Africa Company and self-governing for about 42 years

Over those four decades, it went from being unsettled, landlocked veldt into a hugely successful country, the country with the highest standard of living for blacks in the continent

Of course, Rhodesia didn't do that by singing kumbaya and embracing race communism

Rather, it avoided the apartheid of South Africa while also avoiding the communism of the East and mass liberal democracy of the West by embracing Western government circa 1830: propertied voting

For white and black alike, to vote on the A roll in the national elections, one had to have the modern equivalent of about $60,000 USD in Rhodesian property, such as a house, business, farm, etc.

In limiting the national franchise to such people, it screened out the incompetent, the wastrels, and so on, limiting stewardship of the nation to those who had shown their ability to earn or steward wealth

That was Rhodesia's limitation on then-modern Western government. There was freedom of speech, strong property rights, society-wide gun ownership, freedom of association, and so on. It was a free country

But the franchise was limited, so the egalitarian West despised it, and had for years

Particularly, America, then in the throes of the Civil Rights movement, and Britain, ruled by Harold Wilson the socialist, despised Rhodesia and wanted to destroy its form of government

That Western demand for Rhodesian destruction came from Britain's Harold Wilson and his demand for NIBMAR, or No Independence Before Majority Rule

Despite Rhodesia's lack of apartheid and color-blind application of voting qualification laws, he said that Rhodesia was racist because it limited the franchise to competent stewards of wealth

So, Wilson said that Britain wouldn't allow Rhodesia to become independent unless it went along with "majority rule," meaning one man, one vote, one time mass democracy

That was something the Rhodesians refused entirely to do because they saw it as essentially a demand for Rhodesia to destroy itself

In thinking NIBMAR was a demand for self-destruction of the worst sort, the Rhodesians had a fair point

Particularly, they could look north to the former Belgian Congo, independent since 1961, which was utterly ravaged by internecine violence

Particularly, at that point, the Congo was undergoing the Simba Rebellion, in which drugged-up rebels r*ped, murdered, and looted their way across the former jewel of colonial Africa, turning much of the formerly beautiful colony into a charred wreck in the process. They were only stopped thanks to Mike Hoare and his mercenaries, as recounted in "Congo Mercenary"

Many Belgians fled from the Congo to Rhodesia, where they described how the end of European rule brought with it atrocities that would have shocked the worst torturers of the Spanish Inquisition

The Rhodesians, by 1965 led by Ian Smith and the Rhodesian Front party, decided that such a path was unacceptable

Though despised by, in '65, all except the Portuguese and South Africans, the Rhodesians decided to fight rather than give in to such horrors peacefully, so they declared independence and went to war with the communist rebels who desired their destruction

They declared independence with their November 11, 1965 Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the British

Their UDI was deemed illegal by the UN, and sanctions were passed that isolated Rhodesia and its cash crops from the world

England's House of Lords tried to stop Wilson the communist Labourite from destroying Rhodesia with sanctions, but thanks to Churchill and Lloyd George's 1911 Parliament Bill, their veto was only for a year and after that Wilson destroyed Rhodesia with glee, even sending the Royal Navy to blockade Biera and stop the Rhodesians from importing oil

What followed was a decade-and-a-half-long war in which the Rhodesians, outnumbered and attacked by the whole world, put up a valiant fight for independence and achieved great feats in a probably unwinnable war against the communist rebels

Sadly, they fell by 1979, in no small part thanks to Jimmy Carter and his friend Andy Young, two decidedly evil men despite their current reputations

But while Rhodesia is now gone, its memory ought live on: it stands as a monument and memorial to the fight against global Zimbabweification, a fight against the communist-supported anarcho-tyranny that defines the present

RHODESIANS NEVER DIE!

And listen to the details about the egalitarian-driven roots of the West's betrayal and destruction of Rhodesia here, in which @Sargon_of_Akkad discusses my article for his Islander magazine on the subject:

@Sargon_of_Akkad Oh and the fellas @WBSApparel have rhodie short shorts! Check them out!

@Sargon_of_Akkad @WBSApparel Make Zimbabwe Rhodesia Again! theamericantribunestore.com/products/make-…

@Sargon_of_Akkad @WBSApparel And here’s more about the important legacy of Rhodesia: theamericantribune.news/p/why-rhodesia…