Gábor Búr
(Eötvös Loránd University)
What happened to them?
White settlers in Africa since
independence
Political controversy at the Cannes
Film Festival
Outside the Law (Hors la Loi)
Director Rachid Bouchareb
Protests from former French
colonists
Population flows between
Europe and Africa
From slavery to globalization
In the half-century before World
War I, 55 million emigrants moved
from Europe to America.
(„friends and relatives effect”)
very few to Africa
European/total population in
Africa
•
•
•
•
•
In 1800 ~ 25 thousand/ ~ 100 million
In 1935 ~ 4 million/~180 million
In 1960 ~ 5,5 million/~278 million
In 2010 ~ 5 million/~1000 million
In 2060 ~ ?
/~2000 million
„Negars” and „Blackamoores”
in Europe
• „to manie” for Elizabeth I.
Her Majestie understanding that
there are of late divers blackmoores
brought into this realme, of which
kinde of people there are allready
here to manie … Her Majesty's
pleasure therefore ys that those
kinde of people should be sent forth
of the lande
highly discontented to understand
the great numbers of negars and
Blackamoores which are crept into
this realm … who are fostered and
relieved here to the great
annoyance of her own liege people
… should be with all speed avoided
and discharged out of this Her
Majesty's dominions.
„Europe's Children” in Africa
• typologies of colonialism
• settlers = colonialists?
• „settler capitalism”?
• „settler mode of production”?
The „settler mode of production”
• the exclusion of competition (settler control of
key economic resources, including land,
allocation of infrastructure, banking, and
marketing, at the expense of the indigenous
people)
• the predominance of the migrant labor system
(which allowed the costs of reproducing labor
power to be borne in the rural reserves)
• generalized repression whereby direct and
brutal force was used regularly
• close intersection of race and class.
White Settlers in Africa: Resistance
to Decolonization
Decolonization: perhaps one of the
most important historical processes
of the twentieth century
Colonisation: „alien rule over
„indigenous” population
• White domination
• White, European, capitalistic
stratum
• Vision of racial wars on the
continent
In most European colonies in Africa and Asia, white
immigrants took a privileged position. However, the
position in Rhodesia was distinguished by the fact that
the local white minority entrenched its political, economic
and social dominance of the country. Extensive areas of
prime farmland were reserved for white people only.
Senior positions in the public services were reserved for
white people, and white people working in manual
occupations enjoyed legal protection against job
competition from Africans. As time passed, this situation
became increasingly unwelcome to the majority ethnic
groups within Zimbabwe and also to wide sections of
international opinion.
Rhodesia
Up to the end of the 1970s, white
people were the privileged ethnic group
in the country, although their numbers
never exceeded 300,000, or about
5.5% of the population.
Large-scale white emigration to Rhodesia did not begin
until after the Second World War, and at its peak in the
late 1960s Rhodesia's white population consisted of as
many as 270,000. There were influxes of white
immigrants from the 1940s through to the early 1970s.
The most conspicuous group were former British
servicemen in the immediate post-war period. But many
of the new immigrants were refugees from communism
in Europe, others were former service personnel from
colonial India, others came from Kenya, the Belgian
Congo, Zambia, Algeria, and Mozambique. For a time,
Rhodesia provided something of a haven for white
people who were retreating from decolonisation
elsewhere in Africa and Asia.
After the country's independence as Zimbabwe in
1980, white people had to adjust to being an
ethnic minority in a country with an African
government. Many white people emigrated in the
early 1980s, but many remained. Political unrest
and the illegal seizure of farms resulted in a
further exodus commencing in 1999. Some white
farmers and an unknown number of African
farmworkers were killed while defending their
farms from these seizures. The 2002 census
recorded 46,743 white people remaining in
Zimbabwe. More than 10,000 were elderly and
fewer than 9,000 were under the age of 15.
Following independence, the country's white
people lost their former privileged position. A
generous social welfare net (including both
education and healthcare) that had supported
white people in Rhodesia disappeared almost in
an instant. White people in the artisan, skilled
worker and supervisory classes began to
experience job competition from black people.
Indigenisation in the public services displaced
many white people. The result was that white
emigration gathered pace. In the ten year period
from 1980 to 1990 approximately 2/3 of the white
population left Zimbabwe.
However, many white people resolved
to stay in the new Zimbabwe. Only 1/3
of the white farming community left. An
even smaller proportion of white urban
business owners and members of the
professional classes left. This pattern of
migration meant that although small in
absolute number, Zimbabwe's white
people formed a high proportion of the
upper strata of society.
About 49% of emigrants left to settle in South
Africa, many of whom were Afrikaans speakers,
29% in the United Kingdom and most of the
remainder going to Australia, New Zealand,
Canada, and the United States. Many of these
emigrants identify themselves as Rhodesian. A
white Rhodesian/Zimbabwean who is nostalgic
for the UDI era is known colloquially as a
"Rhodie". These nostalgic "Rhodesians" are also
sometimes referred to as "Whenwes", because of
the nostalgia of "when we were in Rhodesia" A
white who remained in Zimbabwe and accepted
the situation is known as a "Zimbo".
Rhodesian white settlers were considered different in
character to white settlers in other British colonies.
Settlers in Kenya were perceived to be drawn from 'the
officer class' and from the British land owning class.
Settlers in Rhodesia were perceived to be drawn from
lower social strata and were treated accordingly by the
British authorities:
Foreign Office mandarins dismissed white Rhodesians
as lower middle class, no more than provincial clerks
and artisans, the lowly NCOs of empire.
The Zimbabwe government and
other progressive forces…
„The white man is our enemy.”
(Robert Mugabe)
AT ONE POINT I PUT IT TO HIM:
"DO YOU EVER GET OUT? DO
YOU EVER SEE THE APPALLING
STATE OF YOUR SCHOOLS AND
HOSPITALS?"
HE SAID TO ME, "JULIAN, THAT
IS A VERY HOMOSEXUAL
QUESTION."
JG Strijdom prime minister of S.A.
in 1954.: “The white man would not
be able to retain his superiority by
merit alone and owed his dominant
position to the fact that he had the
vote. It was part of the essence of
apartheid, therefore, that the Bantu
should never have the vote in white
areas.”
Terreblanche was well-known for
his proposal for a white separatist
agenda, championing a separate
homeland for the country's white
population.
„White Country” in Africa?
„Black Homelands”
„White Homeland”?
Two of the main forces driving
European emigration in the 19th
century were real wage gaps
between sending and receiving
regions and demographic booms
in the low-wage sending regions.
White settlers in Africa
1960: privileged ruling class
2010: still part of colonial past
2060: out of Africa?