Moving Moments Chapter 1 - Setting the Stage

Moving Moments

Chapter 1 – Setting the Stage

Having recently retired, and being two thirds way through my first century, I realize I definitely have more to remember now than I have to look forward to. I often catch myself remembering odd snippets of my life in years gone by and I will have a quiet chuckle or reminisce at something good that Cher and I have enjoyed together. In moments like these I find myself marveling at the colorful tapestry God has woven into my life to date.

So, recognizing that I’m losing valuable brain cells every year and seizing the opportunity of more time on my hands. I have decided to Carpe the Diem and capture snapshots of my life and later my combined life with Cher. One day no doubt the children and perhaps the grandchildren will dig out this memoir and will marvel, as I do, at how life used to be back in the good old days.

When listening to a story, context is of course very important. It explains the unexplainable, makes understandable the indecipherable and helps one to realize that the world has indeed changed and continues to change at a remarkable rate.

South Africa 1940

So what did my world look like in my early formative years? I grew up in Southern Africa at a time when the Great British Empire still ruled supreme over vast areas of the world. I used to love poring over world maps as a young boy and noting how much of the world   map was colored pink or red, indicating British rule or sphere of influence. About twenty five percent of the world’s area was under the sway of the Empire on which the sun would never set. I would read stories of far flung places, explorers and valiant knights of the realm who had gone out and claimed the spoils for God, King or Queen and Country. I was filled with a great pride at being part of something so special.

                                                                                        
Southern Africa fell under two colonial powers at the time – the British and the Portuguese. The Portuguese were overseeing huge tracts of land: Angola to the west and Mozambique to the east. They had ruled these vast swathes of virgin Africa for close on 500 years. Firmly established at the foot of Africa was South Africa. It was originally settled in the mid-1600s by the Dutch as a replenishing point for their ships on the way out to their empire in Indonesia.

Since arriving in the Cape, over 150 years or so, the Dutch settlers had spread east and north and, depending on what was happening in Europe, they would from time to time be overseen by Dutch, French or British masters. Ultimately by the 1830s they spread north, declaring their own independent republics and shook off their British masters.

As the fabulous mineral wealth of Southern Africa became apparent, the British became more prominently involved, eventually claiming all of South Africa as a British possession. The Anglo Boer war from 1899 to 1902 gave the Dutch Settlers (Afrikaaners) a shot at real independence, but the British won that war and the rest is history so to speak.

One of the great characters that South Africa produced coming out of the diamond mines in Kimberley and the gold mines near Johannesburg was Cecil Rhodes. A great Empire loyalist, he acquired massive wealth through his mining endeavors and became the Governor of the Cape Province. He was determined to use his wealth and influence to grow the empire and began to push British influence north beyond South Africa’s borders. His ultimate intention was to paint the map of Africa pink from Cape Town to Cairo. This would be symbolized by a north south railway line linking the two cities. Lord Kitchener was building a railway south from Egypt to bring Sudan under control and Cecil Rhodes was pushing north from South Africa ever expanding northwards. This effort finally ground to a halt in 1922 a mere five hundred miles apart.

Colonial Africa - 1940

Cecil Rhodes in his drive north from South Africa, gained a concession from the paramount chief of the Matabele nation, Lobengula. The concession granted mining rights, but it wasn’t long before settlers arrived in 1890 and began to claim much of the land for farming. Matabele power was broken in the 1890s and the country of Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe, was born. This was followed by Northern Rhodesia, now known as Zambia, and was to be where Cheryl and I grew up and spent our formative years.

Under the British development of the two Rhodesia’s moved forward at a good clip. Mining and farming became the foundation stones of two thriving little colonies. Over the next fifty years or so, roads, schools, hospitals, airports and other infrastructure were all being built at a furious pace. Life in the colonies was good for the settlers and it could be argued that it was better for the indigenous folk who now began to enjoy the benefits of schooling, hospitals, work opportunities and all that civilization could offer.

The colonial mindset was definitely that British rule was good for everyone. Such things as voting rights for all and other such high minded ideals did not even enter the thinking. Clearly development was a “good thing” and there were no qualms about being colonial oppressors or any other such unhappy thoughts.

After the World Wars, nationalism began to take root amongst indigenous folk throughout the British Empire. Indigenous troops were fighting for Britain in their wars and returning home wondering why they couldn’t enjoy the same rights and privileges as their fellow white soldiers who they had fought and died alongside. After the Second World War, this groundswell became a tidal wave. Britain along with France and Portugal began to realize that they couldn’t sustain their hold on power for ever and began to loosen their grip. Starting with India in 1947 the Great British Empire began to unwind.

Map of Africa by Independence Date

By the 1960s it was pretty much game over for the colonists in Africa as Britain began to relinquish control back to duly elected governments. Northern Rhodesia became an independent Zambia in 1964.  Rhodesia, under a white controlled government, initially resisted this wave, claiming that blacks “would not rule in a thousand years” and made their UDI (unilateral declaration of independence) from Britain in 1965. The Portuguese waged their own war against African nationalist freedom fighters and eventually in 1975 gave up and walked away, virtually overnight, leaving Angola and Mozambique to find their own way. Rhodesia, shunned by the world, lasted fifteen years on their own and eventually capitulated to “one man one vote,  “becoming modern day Zimbabwe in 1980.

That left South Africa as the last bastion of white rule in Southern Africa. With the wars against Rhodesia and Portugal over by 1980 the heat was turned up on South Africa through international sanctions. The excesses of apartheid did not help their cause and ultimately by 1990 Nelson Mandela was released from jail and negotiations began towards the goal of majority rule, which was achieved in 1994. This ended the colonial era in Southern Africa.

It was in this context that Cheryl and I spent our growing up and early adult years. We started off in an idyllic world of privilege and comfort surrounded by an exhilarating feeling of great things being done as Northern Rhodesia developed and grew. Southern Africa was strong and growing. We knew that British/colonial rule was a good thing that was happening in our country. As time went on, and indigenous Africans began to demand their place in the sun, our colonial presuppositions were challenged and we began a long process of having to face up to the demands of a changing world.

As black majority rule progressed across Southern Africa, there were many breakdowns of infrastructure and we had to get used to the fact that black rule, whilst fairer on paper, was not necessarily moving the country forward in a straight line. The schooling system previously enjoyed by whites collapsed quickly in Zambia, forcing parents to send their children to boarding school in neighboring Rhodesia or South Africa. As jobs, previously only open to whites were Zambianised, the conversation for families was often along the lines of “when will we leave”? This began a steady flow of ex Northern Rhodesians heading south to live in Rhodesia or South Africa where the good colonial life was as yet undisturbed. This process was repeated when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980 and we see a comparable phenomenon now happening in South Africa as white families decide to pursue their futures, outside of Africa, where their “whiteness” is not a disadvantage.

As this brief synopsis indicates, the history of Southern Africa in the last 60 – 70 years has been a challenging time to live through if you started off as a card carrying son of the Empire. White colonialists have had to live through a painful process of letting go of their privileged and protected status, generally forsaking it for much less efficient and friendly governments. Oppressive white minority power has been replaced by and large by corrupt black politicians, another minority, who are more concerned with lining their own pockets than caring for the welfare of their electorates. Development for the common people under their watch has been spotty to put it generously.

Cheryl’s and my families have naturally been part of the process and much of our personal histories are a natural outcome of what has been going on in the background. Why did we both have to do our schooling away from home? Why was it necessary to do our university studies in South Africa and not our home country of Zambia and so on? Why did I never have to be part of the military conscription in South Africa which was supporting the system of apartheid, so much abhorred around the world? Why did we leave our parents and siblings in South Africa to live in Canada, half a world away? All of these life changing events were governed by the historical forces which in a multitude of ways have shaped the story of our lives.

On one level this sounds like we were at the mercy of a variety of societal tectonic shifts at work in the background. Whilst this is true, to an extent, nevertheless we see the hand of God at work in our personal lives. Never were we alone. Never did God’s eyes stray from His watch over us. We have experienced the guiding and caring hand of our Father in heaven, such that when we find ourselves now residing happily in Canada, half a world away, with our families growing around us, it does not feel as though we arrived here by mistake. God is good and He is faithful. We have learnt that and are learning it still.

I hope you will chuckle and laugh and ache a bit at times in your own right as you share the adventure of our lives with us. May God bless you as you do.

Rob Cornish