Identity and decolonisation: The policy of partnership in Southern Rhodesia 1945-62

In 1953, the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was created through an agreement between the British government, the Southern Rhodesian government, and the elected legislators of Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. An integral part of the Federal project was the policy and ideal of ‘partnership’ between the races, as distinct from South African apartheid and African nationalism. It was hoped by many of the participants, both white and black, that partnership would be a new approach to race relations in a continent which was in considerable ferment. This thesis evaluates the concept and practice of partnership from 1945 to 1962. It argues that partnership was an attempt by the Rhodesian elite to effect a self-decolonisation: ceding enough power to co-opt the African middle class without radical alteration of the Rhodesian system which thus far has provided a comfortable lifestyle for the whites. Partnership arose from the Rhodesian mental ‘reality’ which held that there was a ‘ladder of civilisation’ which everyone, regardless of race, could climb, allowing the system a certain flexibility. As such it was markedly different from South African apartheid which discriminated on the basis of race alone. This thesis analyses the concept and practice of partnership separate from any moral judgements on failures to deliver on its promises, treating it as an exercise in realpolitik by a white elite trying to accommodate change.