{A Trip to the Colonies [continued]: Declaration of Dependence}[20th September 1974]

[Redbook2:64A-D][19741023:0000]{A Trip to the Colonies [continued]: Declaration of Dependence}[23rd October 1974]

19741023

(1) Every Government, whether democracy or dictatorship, is utterly dependent on the acquiescence of the overwhelming majority of its people. That acquiescence is only obtained through a combination of persuasion and threats. Whether the threats be threats of the force of the Law, or of the torture chamber, or concerning the enemies of the Government, they must be accompanied by persuasion that the Government's interest is the interest of the people.

Once that acquiescence is lost, the Government is finished.

(2) Since the overwhelming majority of your [i.e. Rhodesia's] citizens are of a different racial group to that of the Government, it is only necessary for the relevant threats and persuasion to cease to have effect on that Sector (the majority) of your people for the Government to fall.

(i) So, for example, the fear that Sector has of the enemies of the Government may lead to those enemies posing a greater actual threat to that sector than does the Government's Law, with obvious consequences.

(ii) But equally, if that Sector's fear of the enemies of the Government becomes too little to give rise to a threat by those enemies to that Sector, then only the Government's Law will stand as a political threat to that Sector on the Government's behalf.

(iii) Where the only threat to that Sector comes from the Government, persuasion that the Government and that Sector share the same interests becomes, over a period, very difficult – especially in this case of a different racial group, since race is a strong factor in giving rise to identity of interest.

(iv) It is then only necessary to add persuasion on that Sector by the enemies of the Government, coupled with occasional discreet threats, to convince many members of that Sector that their interests are the interests of those enemies of the Government.

(v) This leads quickly to a complex organisation in an urban context, which is exceptionally difficult to root out (c.f. Ulster: 50 active IRA, 500 supporters, 5,000 Security Forces, ?1,000,000 potential IRA supporters, c.2,000,000+ population).

(vi) Thus the Government once again loses the initiative in persuasion, whereupon the same threat of the Government's Law becomes counter-productive, leading to greater identity of the enemies of that Government with the needs of that Sector.

(3) At this stage – in the urban context – an effective alternative government arises for that Sector. Where the Government does very little for the average citizen of that Sector from day to day (e.g. in welfare benefits), the average citizen has little to lose by co-operation with the 'alternative government' – especially if it provides a form of such benefits itself. Thus the legitimate Government is effectively excluded from that Sector.

(4) Once the urban Sector is so organised, the rural Sector is likely to fall in with the urban Sector's policies through threat (the urban sector and its citizens being by now a larger threat to the rural Sector than is the Government and its Sector) and through persuasion – of identity of interest, on a racial basis.

(5) Once this happens (and probably even before the rural Sector transfers its allegiance) the Government will utterly lose control.

(6) Once the Government loses control, in this manipulated racial context, it is finished.

(7) Once (or as) the Government is destroyed, the Government (or Governing) Sector of the population – the Europeans – having virtually complete identity (in the eyes of the majority Sector) with the Government itself, will also be destroyed.

There is one possible way out of this logical end. If a man of sufficient leadership – of almost messianic intensity – were already in a position of influence and power, he might succeed in uniting the two main sectors for a generation and in leaving behind him an ethos sufficient to create and preserve a stable constitutional development.

Such a man will not now appear [in Rhodesia] because

(1) the governing Sector are too frightened to allow such a man to arise, and to work freely

(2) the governed Sector and their leaders and supporters are too excited to allow such a man power and scope for reconciliation.

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