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Gábor Búr (Eötvös Loránd University)

• What happened to them? White settlers in Africa
  since independence

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Political controversy at the Cannes Film Festival

• Outside the Law (Hors la Loi)
• Director Rachid Bouchareb
• Protests from former French colonists

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Population flows between Europe and Africa

• From slavery to globalization

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In the half-century before World War I, 55
million emigrants moved from Europe to America.
(friends and relatives effect)very few to
Africa
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European/total population in Africa

• In 1800 25 thousand/ 100 million
• In 1935 4 million/180 million
• In 1960 5,5 million/278 million
• In 2010 5 million/1000 million
• In 2060 ? /2000 million

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Negars and Blackamooresin Europe

• to manie for Elizabeth I.

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Her Majestie understanding that there are of late
divers blackmoores brought into this realme, of
which kinde of people there are allready here to
manie Her Majesty's pleasure therefore ys that
those kinde of people should be sent forth of the
lande
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highly discontented to understand the great
numbers of negars and Blackamoores which are
crept into this realm who are fostered and
relieved here to the great annoyance of her own
liege people should be with all speed avoided
and discharged out of this Her Majesty's
dominions.
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Europe's Children in Africa

• typologies of colonialism
• settlers colonialists?
• settler capitalism?
• settler mode of production?

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The settler mode of production

• the exclusion of competition (settler control of
  key economic resources, including land,
  allocation of infrastructure, banking, and
  marketing, at the expense of the indigenous
  people)
• the predominance of the migrant labor system
  (which allowed the costs of reproducing labor
  power to be borne in the rural reserves)
• generalized repression whereby direct and brutal
  force was used regularly
• close intersection of race and class.

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White Settlers in Africa Resistance to
Decolonization

• Decolonization perhaps one of the most important
  historical processes of the twentieth century

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Colonisation alien rule over indigenous
population

• White domination
• White, European, capitalistic stratum
• Vision of racial wars on the continent

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In most European colonies in Africa and Asia,
white immigrants took a privileged position.
However, the position in Rhodesia was
distinguished by the fact that the local white
minority entrenched its political, economic and
social dominance of the country. Extensive areas
of prime farmland were reserved for white people
only. Senior positions in the public services
were reserved for white people, and white people
working in manual occupations enjoyed legal
protection against job competition from Africans.
As time passed, this situation became
increasingly unwelcome to the majority ethnic
groups within Zimbabwe and also to wide sections
of international opinion.
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Rhodesia Up to the end of the 1970s, white
people were the privileged ethnic group in the
country, although their numbers never exceeded
300,000, or about 5.5 of the population.
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Large-scale white emigration to Rhodesia did not
begin until after the Second World War, and at
its peak in the late 1960s Rhodesia's white
population consisted of as many as 270,000. There
were influxes of white immigrants from the 1940s
through to the early 1970s. The most conspicuous
group were former British servicemen in the
immediate post-war period. But many of the new
immigrants were refugees from communism in
Europe, others were former service personnel from
colonial India, others came from Kenya, the
Belgian Congo, Zambia, Algeria, and Mozambique.
For a time, Rhodesia provided something of a
haven for white people who were retreating from
decolonisation elsewhere in Africa and Asia.
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After the country's independence as Zimbabwe in
1980, white people had to adjust to being an
ethnic minority in a country with an African
government. Many white people emigrated in the
early 1980s, but many remained. Political unrest
and the illegal seizure of farms resulted in a
further exodus commencing in 1999. Some white
farmers and an unknown number of African
farmworkers were killed while defending their
farms from these seizures. The 2002 census
recorded 46,743 white people remaining in
Zimbabwe. More than 10,000 were elderly and fewer
than 9,000 were under the age of 15.
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Following independence, the country's white
people lost their former privileged position. A
generous social welfare net (including both
education and healthcare) that had supported
white people in Rhodesia disappeared almost in an
instant. White people in the artisan, skilled
worker and supervisory classes began to
experience job competition from black people.
Indigenisation in the public services displaced
many white people. The result was that white
emigration gathered pace. In the ten year period
from 1980 to 1990 approximately 2/3 of the white
population left Zimbabwe.
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However, many white people resolved to stay in
the new Zimbabwe. Only 1/3 of the white farming
community left. An even smaller proportion of
white urban business owners and members of the
professional classes left. This pattern of
migration meant that although small in absolute
number, Zimbabwe's white people formed a high
proportion of the upper strata of society.
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About 49 of emigrants left to settle in South
Africa, many of whom were Afrikaans speakers, 29
in the United Kingdom and most of the remainder
going to Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the
United States. Many of these emigrants identify
themselves as Rhodesian. A white
Rhodesian/Zimbabwean who is nostalgic for the UDI
era is known colloquially as a "Rhodie". These
nostalgic "Rhodesians" are also sometimes
referred to as "Whenwes", because of the
nostalgia of "when we were in Rhodesia" A white
who remained in Zimbabwe and accepted the
situation is known as a "Zimbo".
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Rhodesian white settlers were considered
different in character to white settlers in other
British colonies. Settlers in Kenya were
perceived to be drawn from 'the officer class'
and from the British land owning class. Settlers
in Rhodesia were perceived to be drawn from lower
social strata and were treated accordingly by the
British authoritiesForeign Office mandarins
dismissed white Rhodesians as lower middle class,
no more than provincial clerks and artisans, the
lowly NCOs of empire.
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The Zimbabwe government and other progressive
forces

• The white man is our enemy. (Robert Mugabe)

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AT ONE POINT I PUT IT TO HIM "DO YOU EVER GET
OUT? DO YOU EVER SEE THE APPALLING STATE OF YOUR
SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS?" HE SAID TO ME, "JULIAN,
THAT IS A VERY HOMOSEXUAL QUESTION."
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JG Strijdom prime minister of S.A. in 1954.
The white man would not be able to retain his
superiority by merit alone and owed his dominant
position to the fact that he had the vote. It was
part of the essence of apartheid, therefore, that
the Bantu should never have the vote in white
areas.
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Terreblanche was well-known for his proposal for
a white separatist agenda, championing a separate
homeland for the country's white population.
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White Country in Africa?Black
HomelandsWhite Homeland?
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Two of the main forces driving European
emigration in the 19th century were real wage
gaps between sending and receiving regions and
demographic booms in the low-wage sending
regions.
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White settlers in Africa

• 1960 privileged ruling class 2010 still part
  of colonial past
• 2060 out of Africa?