White Minority Rule in Rhodesia Reexamined: Urgent Lessons from the Past

In 1965, white minority-ruled Rhodesia, a settler colony in Southern Africa, declared independence from the United Kingdom in order to escape the imposition of majority rule. Although Western powers publicly condemned Rhodesia’s illegal secession, declassified government documents reveal that they also enabled the continuation of white rule by violating United Nations sanctions and shielding the regime from the use of force. These events offer important lessons for today as the erosion of democracy in the West evokes all-too-tepid responses and white supremacists have openly embraced Rhodesia as a model for the establishment of new white supremacist states.