From My Notebooks In 1974: Into White Rhodesia

February 8th

A rainbow spanned the Victoria Falls

Lusaka to Livingstone. Good sunny day with light cumulus, developing to storm clouds in late afternoon but generally off the road. Felt a real sense of the beautifulness of this earth, and as I contemplated the rich pasture land stretching out in all directions to the sound of lowing cattle, and remembered the thousands of miles since Nairobi (and before in Ethiopia) I find it hard to imagine so many people huddled together in Western cities, cribbed, cabined and confined. Thought of the good young men I have met (few girls) who would live peaceful self-sufficient lives out here, not driven to meddle and distort the pattern through mistaken and misshapen idealism.

There is so much fear in the cities, so little faith in the earth. How people love to tell and shudder at horror stories. Africans walk barefoot where a Londoner would expect to be attacked by any of a thousand venomous species. Me too. I’m ashamed of my cautious toe-dipping attitude – and excuse myself by the kind of journey I’m on.

Yet this journey must teach me that man can go free in this world – and the city, which was once a haven and has now become a prison is a habit. Indeed city dwellers, viewed in this light, look like a crowd of old lags, recidivists, huddled together in fear and trembling of the freedom that lies outside.

Remember the couple of Africans who were dancing by the roadside. I snapped my fingers as I passed and they smiled broadly.

February 9th

The Falls. The knife edge. Rhodesia – “the enemy”

Late afternoon on the Zambesi. African fishing. One man catching tiny fish. “Whitebait.” One had a bream.

“The Shadow of your Smile,” from a red Datsun pickup. Man who caught several small catfish and bream, and a “croaker” – croaked as he pulled out the hook and snapped off its spines. Bishop bird, and a bee-eater (scarlet bill). Distant grunts of Hippo. Long neck and beak of water bird floating past. Sahimia is weed that floats on the surface of Zambesi, choking up the Kariba Dam.

February 10th

Gentle encounter with official at Livingstone Bridge.

Which side has closed the bridge?

“Both sides.”

[I already knew that the bridge was closed. The only way to Southern Rhodesia was through neutral Botswana, which was reached by driving twenty miles or so downstream along the so-called Kaprivi Strip.]

Away down the road to Kazangula. A highway for Jongolola and Dung beetles. No traffic at all. The ferry, two flat bottomed floats. Group of soldiers sitting on the Zambia side. “No, the ferry has not fallen down.” Botswana immigration – and a glimpse of churned up mud and water where the road out is. Worst fears confirmed. Zambian customs sell me a few Rhodesian coins. Botswana takes them back for an insurance policy, good in SA also though. Off I go, skating on mud. But road improves, and so does my riding. But I’m concentrating so heavily I miss the left turn. After six miles I realise I’m wrong and turn back. Stop at a village, brick huts and singing group. Leader and chorus. Leader has voice like Durante – sings one line, chorus responds, like hot gospel.

Right road soon gets me to customs. Rhodesians in white cotton uniforms – tunic and elasticated shorts. Two men, young and plump, with strained voices. One comes in carrying a gun tight against his chest, like a regimental colour, but as though the slightest movement would set it off.

“Do you have Rhodesian Third Party Insurance, Mr. Simon?”

“No. Can I get it at Victoria Falls?”

“Trouble is, the road from here to Vic Falls is bad. If you had an accident, you might not have a leg to stand on.”

There was a graveyard for famous old locomotives. I can’t remember their name. Can anyone help? I think it began with a G.

Road is bad to worse, but there’s no rain and again I find the dirt much easier to ride. At speed it slides though the little patches of slurry fast enough to get a grip again before much deviation is possible.

See a sable in middle of the road – scimitar horns sweeping back – by arching its back it can kill a lion attacking its hindquarters.

Then little kangaroo type animal – which turns out to be a Springhare. The Falls on Rhodesian side are spectacular view, but there isn’t the intimacy with them that you get on the Zambian side.

February 16th

Salisbury, Saturday. The city, neat as a new pintable, with its well-ordered traffic lanes, freshly painted facades, White men vindicating the much-mocked values of a thousand minor public schools, whose old boys can find here what Britain has so manifestly lost; a decent life for a decent chap prepared to pull his weight (and throw it around a bit too.)

The African in Salisbury is not prominent. He mans the lifts and minds the counters, cooks, cleans and irons, calls you Baas and Sir and keeps his differences to himself. It’s no less British for being ODI and would be even without the prosperous (and surprising) presence of famous British companies like Dunlop and Lyons and Thos. Cook & Sons. Of course, they will explain that it’s not actually Dunlop at all but Dunlop (Rhod) Ltd, or some such fiction.

[Rhodesia, under Ian Smith, was holding out against the inevitable tide of Black independence. Trade between the UK and Rhodesia was supposedly forbidden. Coming into White Rhodesia from Black Africa was a little shocking. I found I didn’t like the white faces I saw; they looked narrow and aggressive.]

I am bewildered. Since Nairobi I have been seeing double – two images – the European idea of Africa superimposed on an African life. At times one image blocks out the other.

Next week: On a long and paradisical road to prohibition.

PS: I thought I’d add a little postscript, to express my concerns, not that I have any particularly brilliant insights to impart. Simply imagine, if you would, that we’re sitting at a bar, or over a coffee table.

It’s just that watching Trump play with his toys I find it impossible to keep quiet.

I am quite certain he decided long ago that Ukraine will have to sacrifice a large chunk of territory, and the sooner the better, so that he can start having profitable transactions with Putin, whom he admires.

Zelensky is just an intolerable nuisance. So anything that distracts the world from Ukraine and Zelensky is welcome.

The two years of the destruction of Gaza – which are as much Trump’s campaign as they are Netanyahu’s – have been very useful in that regard, but people have started looking at Ukraine again, so something else had to be done.

His assault on Iran has certainly been a new distraction, with the additional advantage that in order to rescue the world’s economy from its consequences Trump has been able to let Putin sell more oil and give him a new source of income. We are now at the brink of a huge disaster.

It becomes increasingly irresistible to make comparisons with Hitler. Like Hitler Trump sees himself as a master of the geo-political game, but without even Hitler’s credentials.. The people he has gathered around him resemble, more and more, the Führer’s gang of Goebels, Göring, Himmler, Speer, Riefenstahl, etc.

Meanwhile from Trump’s point of view Western Europe is just a pathetic sideshow, good for pageantry and magnificent state visits, and useful mainly as a scapegoat.

Like Hitler, Trump will surely, ultimately, be his own undoing, but must we all be brought down with him?