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From International Socialism, No.23, Winter 1965/66, p.4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The announcement of UDI in Rhodesia has occurred just as we go to press, and it is too late to include a full review of the situation. However, a number of points stand out immediately in this curious episode – most notably the Labour Government’s obsession with the pious legalities of the situation to the extent where these legalities become ridiculous and the central political issue is obscured. Earlier Labour Governments showed little or no interest in the problem, here at least since the 1920s, and only Anglo-American necessities of courting African opinion have prompted the current sluggish agitation. The attitudes of past British Governments are clearly indicated in the observation of the elder Rhodesian politician, Lord Malvern: ‘I never had any trouble. When Britain tried to interfere, which was not often, I just thumbed my nose at them and did what I wanted’ (The Times, 15 Nov). Similarly, the Labour Government’s terror of using force to oust Smith in Rhodesia contrasts illuminatingly with its own uninhibited use of force (without a Parliamentary tizzy) in Aden and British Guiana, and its dogged loyalty to the continued bombing of North Vietnam and American terrorism in South Vietnam. If nothing else, socialists should clearly nail these ‘anomalies’ – how, in Wilson’s terms, is Ian Smith different from the Liberation Fronts of Aden and Vietnam?
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