Freedom Fighting Terrorists

VERBATIM POST
THOUGHTS ALOUD
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On a social networking site I frequent, a young lady posted a lament that the media were not referring to the perpetrator of the recent atrocity in Norway as a terrorist. She allowed that she had never heard of a terrorist before 9/11, and wondered why only Muslims are called such. I suspect that was probably about the time in her youth, when she first became the slightest bit interested in the news. Anyway, she punched one of my buttons, and this was my reply:

There is nothing new about the term ‘terrorism.’ We were fighting what we called terrorists when I was living in Rhodesia almost 40 years ago. They were Chinese communist inspired insurgents, from training camps in Zambia and Mozambique. Rather than confront our national security forces directly, they used hit & run tactics to attack white farmers, native villages, missionary outposts, etc. in the farming country.

They were armed with AK47s, RPGs, and land mines, which were easy to bury in all the dirt roads in the farming communities. It was a common sight to see the fender from a land rover 30 ft. up in a tree, where some innocent farmer’s wife had been blown up by one, while on her way to town for supplies. All farm houses were surrounded by 12 ft. high security fences beyond RPG range of the house, and had sandbags under the windows so the farmer could return fire if attacked in the middle of the night.

The term is also subjective and depends on one’s perspective, not one’s religion. There was a common expression at the time, that one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom fighter. Americans had a romanticized notion that these animals were fighting for their freedom from the evil colonizers, who had no right to be in Africa with a white face. So, in the American press, they were called freedom fighters, even though the local natives hated them as much as the whites did.

They had every reason to. They were very satisfied with their lives as they were. While there were some cultural barriers to total integration of the races, such as white only private clubs, they were no worse than our Southern culture in the ’60s. There were plenty of native doctors, lawyers, and members of parliament, who were as welcome in a typical nightclub, movie theater, or restaurant as anyone else. There was universal medical care for everyone, and universal education for all children.

The simpler natives, who happily worked as farmhands, were paid well and lived in traditional native villages right on the farms, governing themselves with their native traditions. Alas, these villages were favorite targets for the terrorists, who could not get local support without terror. I have personally witnessed atrocities committed against the leaders of these villages, to terrorize them into hiding and feeding them, which you would not want to hear me describe.

There were more black natives in Rhodesia’s security forces than whites, but that was an inconvenient fact that was left out of American news stories. That and the fact that whites had been living in southern Africa for 400 years. The amusing mantra from America, was that the whites ought to ‘go home’ and give their land back to the natives they stole it from.

A Rhodesian farmer put it to me this way, “Dave, my great-great-grandfather cleared this land. My grandfather was born on this farm. So was my father, and so was I. Now I have two sons that were born here. I AM home; I AM an African; and I have no place else to go.” It would be akin to the world saying to Americans, “Your ancestors had no right to steal America from the Indians, we want you to home and give it back to them.”

They lost the battle with communism in the end, of course, because of the UN sanctions and the ignorance of the Western world being stacked against them. You may have heard of their leader, Robert Mugabe, who is now dictator for life in the country now named Zimbabwe. He murdered all the white farmers and gave their land to his ‘freedom fighters,’ Rhodesia was once the bread basket of Africa, exporting food, cotton, and tobacco all over the world. Now it cannot afford to import enough food to feed its starving population. Forgive the rant, it utterly disgusts me when I think about it.

◄Dave►