Bitter Harvest: Zimbabwe and the Aftermath of its Independence [Paperback]

Ian Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2008

For more than a decade, Ian Smith served as Rhodesia's Prime Minister during the era of white minority rule. Following his death in 2007, he is still a man with the ability to excite powerful emotions. To some he is a leader whose formidable integrity led him into head-to-head confrontation with the Labor government of Britain in the 1960s. To others he is a demon best known for stating "I don't believe in black majority rule ever, not in a thousand years," for staunchly opposing Britain's insistence that majority rule be implemented before the nation’s independence, and for imprisoning the leadership of the newly emerged black nationalist movement. In this revealing autobiography, Smith tells his own side of the story and reveals how he sought to keep Rhodesia on a path to full democracy during the West's decolonization of Africa. He tells the remarkable story behind the signing of the country’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence and addresses the excesses of power that the current president, Robert Mugabe, has used to create the virtual dictatorship which exists in Zimbabwe today. This is a revealing and prescient historical document from a controversial figure charting the rise and fall of a once-great nation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Ian Smith was born on 8 April 1919 in rural Rhodesia. He was educated at Chaplin High School, Gwelo, and at Rhodes University, South Africa, before joining No. 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron, RAF. He became Prime Minister of Rhodesia in April 1964, and took his country through the Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965. His term as Prime Minister ended with the first fully democratic election of April 1979.He was a minister without portfolio in Bishop Muzorewa's Government of National Unity and remained in Parliament until Robert Mugabe had him expelled in 1986. Ian Smith continued to farm in Zimbabwe, maintaining a keen interest in politics, until his death on 20 November 2007.

Product Details

• Paperback: 462 pages
• Publisher: John Blake (May 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857826043
• ISBN-13: 978-1857826043
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #411,089 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #46 in Books > History > Africa > Zimbabwe
  • #59 in Books > History > Africa > Southern Africa

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wake up call., January 30, 2009

By 

S Smyth (Belfast, Co Antrim United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitter Harvest: Zimbabwe and the Aftermath of its Independence (Paperback)

This account of the deliberate destruction of Rhodesia by foreign powers helbent on disastrous political agendas which are also an existential threat to their own states and economies in 2009, is a wake-up-call for people with an interest in such matters. The bulk of Ian Smith's ire is directed towards Great Britain and its determined drive to placate the OAU and maintain the Commonwealth via the policy of No Independence Before African Majority Rule (NIBMAR) irrespective of the reality on the ground that Black-Africans desired any such a thing, or had the slightest ability to administrate it beyond a cadre of Marxiist-Lennist gangsters intent upon looting Rhodesia's capital core, for their own purposes.

As per Henry Kissinger's pragmatic advice and South Africa's disastrous détente policy, as aggressively advocated by John Vorster, Ian Smith accepted the inevitable. Rhodesia became Zimbabwe. And Robert Mugabe in consort with Zanu-PF, rapidly instigated their intended programme to reduce a successful and thriving African state into the catastrophe it now is, whilst pocketing the loot and remaining in power without any possibility of being challenged. Which is the point of Communism, as Ian Smith was reliably informed by a Black-African university graduate when asked why he was an advocate of Communism.

At the heart of this book is the observation that, when those who do not have to suffer the consequences of their actions persist in ignoring principles and sacrifice integrity for political expediency and personal gain, the state cannot survive.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How liberal guilt leads to more innocent bloodshed!, May 11, 2009

By 

Jeffrey S. Ross (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bitter Harvest: Zimbabwe and the Aftermath of its Independence (Paperback)

Prime Minister Ian Smith lays out in detail how the Western powers, motivated by an urge to atone for a leftist-inspired guilt complex over the past, have only caused more innocent blood to gush in a land far from them. That, along with South African Prime John Vorster's foolish attempt to appease African Marxist leaders and use Rhodesia as a foil to distract world attention away from his Apartheid regime, has only served to install a brutal thug whose regime has one of the worst human rights records. If Western liberals want a REAL reason to feel guilty, they need only look to Zimbabwe and read Ian Smith's book.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Mugabe, Bloodthirsty Thug, November 4, 2010

By 

R. Carpenter "RC" (Pennsylvania, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bitter Harvest: Zimbabwe and the Aftermath of its Independence (Paperback)

Ian Douglas Smith was born in 1919, the year after WWI ended. He was a relic of what "British" used to mean before socialism, before the nanny state, and before political correctness. For better or worse, he wanted to bring British rule of law, and the British way of thinking, to the Rhodesian Africans along with the resulting prosperity. He succeeded in bringing prosperity; most historians agree the Rhodesian Africans were more prosperous than any others. Smith immediately recognized Robert Mugabe for the savage thug he has always been. The problem was numbers: 270,000 Europeans compared with five million Africans in Rhodesia. Once the AK-47 arrived from Russia in large numbers it was only a matter of time. Rhodesia was something of an embarrassment for the rest of the white world with the civil rights movement in its early years of promise. It was so easy for distant Americans or Europeans to mouth the words "Black Majority Rule" without any understanding of reality. That reality included two very different peoples that whites feel free to lump together as "black", the Shona and the Matabele. The Shona, other than Mugabe and his thugs, are known as artistic, creative, intelligent and friendly people compared with the Matabeles, who are descended from the same folk as the Zulus. Both groups hated white people much LESS than they hated each other. In that sense, white rule was the Africans' second choice. Not good, but better than rule by the other African group. That fact explains why so few whites were able to rule so many Africans for so long, with the able assistance of African soldiers and police, all of whom were volunteers.
Rhodesia was thrown to to wolves by South Africa in order to buy that country's Apartheid system a few more years. Smith had no choice but to take what he could salvage, which included civil rights for white people and a white quota in the parliament for seven years. To give the devil his due, Mugabe waited the seven years to begin killing white people and taking their large farms. The whites knew how to run large farms but the Africans either did not or had little incentive to do so under new price controls. The predictable results include mass starvation and women forced to South Africa and prostitution in order to feed their children. Today there are fewer than 20,000 whites in the country, few of them in the countryside. Like many savages (see Ben Bernanke) Mugabe believed real wealth comes from printing money. Unlike our own Federal Reserve, Mugabe learned his lesson and no longer bothers to print his own worthless currency.
Here are a few telling comparisons between Smith and Mugabe. When Smith lived in the Prime Minister's residence it was often unguarded; he often answered the door himself. Mugabe has always lived there surrounded by sandbags, barbed wire, and machine guns. Smith often drove accompanied by one police officer. Mugabe drives with at least a company of heavily armed bodyguards. Any ordinary driver who does not stop immediately until the entourage passes risks being beaten to a pulp.
Is there a lesson for the future? Mind our own business; stop trying to "help" people we do not understand. Trade and visit, but no military alliances; no sanctions, no "spreading democracy" at gunpoint.