Not all whites had no dual citizenship, this meant no right of return. If UK was earnest about decolonization, they should've openly offered all whites in former African colonies right of return on condition of establishing majority rule.
Sure, that would've been a great and valid solution to it, but decolonization was a messy thing that the Europeans dropped and fled from for the large part.
You didn't answer my question, you're just saying why one side would prefer if other would surrender without conditions. Of course everyone would prefer to win bigly than win modestly.
Because the option of surrendering with conditions would've almost completely voided the entire point of the Bush War, really. They wanted majority rule and and end to colonialism, which letting the whites retain the majority control of the economy and special privilege in government would've defeated it entirely, honestly.
White Rhodesians unilaterally surrendered most of their power Internal Settlement. The about only thing left to do was to run them out of their homes.
The mental gymnastic you go though to claim that peace settlement that attempts to satisfy both sides somehow isn't a peace settlement. Sorry, but word "peace" implies two sides coming to an agreement. Just because it's a peace agreement someone doesn't like doesn't mean it's not peace.
It failed only because world refused to recognize democratically elected government, only because it didn't include terrorists who over last decade murdered thousands of black civilians. Murderers and war criminals were never brought to justice, and to this day they benefit while ordinary people suffer.
Accepting Internal Settlement, and working from there would result in less corrupt and more prosperous Zimbabwe.
Rhodesians were addressing issues demanded of them by international opinion, and after 1979 "one man, one vote" elections brought in democratic government, criticism of Rhodesia had nothing to stand on. It was no less democratic than any of her northern neighbors.
I would very very very much like for you to understand that said election was not universal and it was extremely flawed in its execution. It relied on the same electoral system that retained 20 seats based on property, income, and educational barriers, and even then nine seats were not elected but appointed in government. That entire structure there gave 29 uncontestable seats to the RF and rendered, essentially, white-exclusive seats and gave the RF undue power with safe seats. That's completely unacceptable in any democratic election, even in the context of the Internal Settlement.
And I extremely doubt that it'd work, considering how South Africa still has whites controlling the majority of the economy and we can see how well that's been working out for them. And that's not the blame
every white in South Africa, many of them like indigenous people get shafted by the control of the economy by small groups. Working from there would've, for the most part, have created an anemic and very tense situation within and would've created similar conditions as to South Africa. And I'd mention again, if you were seeking peace, you'd best try to find an agreement
with the people you fight because even if you achieve moderate endings. It wasn't satisfying both sides, it was satisfying the people who weren't fighting in the first place.
This isn't mental gymnastics, this is basic logic. The Int. Settlement was not a solution, it was simply a continuation of a terrible system with a friendly face where the same man who'd
triggered this entire conflict through his actions and brutality (I'd recommend reading Prisoners of Rhodesia) now shared power. You have a very biased view of this, considering Ian Smith was a pure and utter malevolent bastard. And this is no defense of the political violence that the ZANU/ZAPU and their predecessors engaged in, but I'd be clear in saying that everything can be laid right at Smith's feet, and no government with him would ever have survived even by Int. Settlement.
Hard to keep Apatheid when there wasn't one in the first place, it was specifically Boer invention. System in Rhodesia wasn't Apartheid, it was quite different from one in South Africa. For example, Rhodesia had blacks in her army, including as officers, they served side by side with whites, there was no "apartness". Ordinary people might not realize there was any difference, or even that Rhodesia was separate country from South Africa, but if you're arguing it so passionately you should know.
What, this is some classical Rhodesian apologism. Yes there was, even if Rhodesia started recruiting blacks, the apartheid within Rhodesia was blatantly clear; it created a white-dominant government through racialized voting rolls and mandating 'separate developments' where the vast majority of the economic, social, and political control was largely in the hands of whites. The entire
structure was based on racialist policies, how can you even argue against that. Race integration was banned in the country, so was race mixing. The Rhodesian government
had their own bantustans called Native Reserves/Tribal Trust Areas under the Land Apportionment Act (and later Land Tenure Act) and that extended to urban areas under the Native Urban Areas Accommodation Act to redline and segregate the cities between whites and blacks.
There's an extensive process into this on AskHistorians over on Reddit who go further into this. Please, for the love of whatever you believe in, read it.
And to amend a little; Apartheid was an
Afrikaner named D. F. Malan, and his ancestry was from French Huguenots
Wrong. And plain lie as well, even Wikipedia acknowledges you're in the wrong here. There was no plan for coup, operation Quartz was planned in advance of expected ZANU-PF refusing to acknowledge they lost election, and launching their coup. ZANU-PF didn't lose, so Quartz wasn't implemented.
Now you're blaming military for planning to defend results of democratic elections, and you don't give them credit for actually accepting results they ended up with.
I will concede on this point, and I'd admit I was tired at the time of writing it and didn't think clearly.
You're the one who started writing essay-length posts in this thread, don't be surprised that someone tries to address them point-by-point.
It's not even that, Mackus, it's the level of defensiveness you've put into defending what
is a colonialist settler state that blatantly was an authoritarian white supremacist state from its existence until its very end. Very rarely have I seen anyone defend it like this and not have some
very unfortunate opinions and views on certain topics. I love spirited, lengthy conversations.
Most white 'settlers' in SA have no European citizenship so it's a bit hard to leave Africa. Also for many people their families have been there for hundreds of years, SA will be the only place they know.
A bigger proportion of Rhodesians will have British passports but I do think it's problematic to conflate decolonisation with kicking out the whites.
I'd pretext this by explaining that the comment made there was in particular for those who weren't established like white South Africans are, and that I understand fully the difference between Rhodesian settlers (who were a recent group) and established whites (e.g. Afrikaners) who had generations to establish their own identities and become, essentially, White Africans.
My comment was directed towards recent settlers from the 1880's onwards, those who came as part of the Scramble for Africa and later periods of colonial domination. And I agree, it was worded poorly and my comment was based on works I've read that indicated voluntary/involuntary decolonization of Africa by whites who returned to their colonizers metropol or to other parts of Africa that were more amenable to them during decolonization. As Mackus and I agreed on, allowing those who wished to leave to be granted passports and such to should've been given it during decolonization. If whites decided to leave, so be it, but if they decided to stay then... so be it as well.
And it would be problematic, yes, and I'd like to claim I don't believe in ejecting every white out of Africa. As well, if an ex-colonial settler wished to leave then it should've been a prerogative of theirs to be able to by their former colonizing state. I should make that distinction more clear, as well, that I believe fully that if whites remained in Africa that they'd be considered legal citizens and should not be discriminated against, same as any other person of any ethnic or cultural group in any situation.