NEW YORK TIMES TODAY: Rhodesia’s Dead — but White Supremacists Have Given It New Life Online.
Not long after Rhodesia ceased to exist, it became morally untenable to mourn its disappearance. As the rest of the world woke up to the injustices of Western colonialism and its system of white-minority governments, the Selous Scouts and their cause became taboo. . . .
Nostalgia for Rhodesia has since grown into a subtle and profitable form of racist messaging, with its own line of terminology, hashtags and merchandise, peddled to military-history fans and firearms enthusiasts by a stew of far-right provocateurs.
NEW YORK TIMES IN 2005: Black Zimbabweans nostalgic for era of white rule:
An elderly peasant in another village, Makupila Muzamba, said that hunger today is worse than ever before in his seven decades or so, and said: “I want the white man’s government to come back. Even if whites were oppressing us, we could get jobs and things were cheap compared to today.”
His wife, Mugombo Mudenda, remembered that as a younger woman she used to eat meat, drink tea, use sugar and buy soap. But now she cannot even afford corn gruel. “I miss the days of white rule,” she said.
Nearly every peasant I’ve spoken to in Zimbabwe echoed those thoughts.
Well, the narrative shifts as needed.
