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“Equal Rights for all Civilized Men”:

Elite Africans and the Quest for “European” Liquor in Colonial Zimbabwe, 1924–1961*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2008

Michael O. West
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Between 1924 and 1961 elite Africans in Southern Rhodesia (colonial Zimbabwe) waged a protracted political struggle for the right legally to drink “European” liquor, which had been banned to colonized Africans under the Brussels Treaty of 1890. Refusing to be lumped with the black masses and basing their claim on the notion that there should be “equal rights for all civilized men”, elite Africans argued that they had attained a cultural level comparable to that of the dominant European settlers and should therefore be exempt from the liquor ban. This struggle, which ended successfully in 1961, also highlights other important themes in the history of the emergent African elite in Southern Rhodesia, most notably its political tactics and consciousness. The quest for European liquor helped to hone political skills as well, as a number of individuals who participated in it later became important African nationalist leaders.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Review of Social History , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , December 1992 , pp. 376 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1992

References

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3 This phrase is generally attributed to Cecil Rhodes, one-time Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, diamond magnate, and the moving spirit behind the establishment of the colonies of Southern and Northern Rhodesia, for whom they were named.

4 While rejecting the notion of “European” liquor in the racially exclusive sense that it was used in Southern Rhodesia and elsewhere in colonial Africa, to avoid unnecessary cumbersomeness I have refrained from putting “European” between quotation marks, except in this instance and in the title.

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33 Asians had been exempt from the prohibition all along, though they had to obtain a permit in order to purchase liquor.

34 An attempt two years earlier to give coloureds the right to purchase European liquor was unsuccessful, with opponents citing widespread drunkenness among South Africa's coloured population and expressing fear that Southern Rhodesian coloureds would suffer the same fate if permitted to drink. In 1938, in its successful petition to the Legislative Council urging repeal of the liquor prohibition as it applied to coloureds, the Coloured Community Service League drew a sharp distinction between coloureds and Africans. The former, unlike the latter, the petition asserted, could not “be described as being in the barbaric stage to warrant such a stigma being placed upon them”. Thus coloureds, like elite Africans, regarded legal access to European liquor as an important status advancement and public recognition of their place among the colony’s “civilized” community. See Debates of the Legislative Assembly, vol. 16 (Salisbury, n.d.), cols 3008–3158; Debates of the Legislative Assembly, vol. 18 (Salisbury, n.d.), col. 1673.

35 Debates of the Legislative Assembly, vol. 18, col. 1488.

36 Debates of the Legislative Assembly (unrevised), 23rd April, 1959, no. 60 (Salisbury, 1959), col. 3434. See also Legislative Assembly. First Report of the Select Committee on Supply of Liquor to Non-Europeans (11th March, 1959), and Legislative Assembly. Second Report of the Select Committee on Supply of Liquor to Non-Europeans (16th April, 1959).

37 Debates of the Legislative Assembly, 23rd April, 1959, col. 3434.

38 Ibid., col. 3446.

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44 West, , “African Middle-Class Formation”, pp. 338–345.Google Scholar

45 Between 1943 and 1948 the Bantu Congress, one of the leading African political movements during and after World War II, was under the presidency of the Rev. T.D. Samkange, a Wesleyan Methodist minister and noted opponent of liquor in all its forms. However, unlike the African Missionary Conference, which Samkange also served as secretary for a long time, the Bantu Congress was not dominated by clerics. Most of the other officers and the vast majority of its members were lay people. See Terence Ranger,“The Bantu National Congress of Southern Rhodesia, 1943 to 1948: A Revisionist Interpretation” (unpub. paper, African Research Seminar, St. Anthony's College, Oxford, 12 November 1991). On Samkange's attitude toward liquor, see NAZ, S235/477: Notes on Evidence of Enquiry into Bulawayo Location, 1930, p. 63.

46 NAZ, S482/717/39: Pres., Af. Voters' League to Prime Mi (Mm. of Native Affairs), 2 Dec 1946.

47 NAZ, S517: P/Det., Criminal Investigation Dept. to Provincial Criminal Investigation Dept., Mashonaland, 31 Aug 1949.

48 BM, 2 06 1956.Google Scholar

49 BM, 27 03 1954.Google Scholar

50 Concord (Salisbury), 05 1955, p. 20.Google Scholar

51 See, for example, the BM editorials of 10 Apr 1948 and 30 Mar 1957.

52 BM, 1 12 1956.Google Scholar

53 BM, 23 02 1957.Google Scholar

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57 BM, 23 07 1956.Google Scholar

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60 Keatley, Patrick, The Politics of Partnership (Baltimore, 1963).Google Scholar

61 With the coming of the Federation, a number of groups were formed to promote racial partnership, chief among which were the Capricorn Africa Society and the Inter-Racial Association of Southern Rhodesia. These groups and individuals associated with them organized a wide variety of multiracial activities, including social events where Africans apparently were served European liquor illicitly. See, for example, Shamuyarira, Nathan, Crisis in Rhodesia (London, 1965), especially the chapter entitled “Tea-time Partners”.Google Scholar

62 Concord, , 10 1956, p. 19.Google Scholar

63 Debates of the Legislative Assembly (unrevised), 16th May, 1957, vol. 39, no. 36 (Salisbury, 1959), col. 1881.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., cols 1858–1888.

65 Ibid., col. 1858.

66 Ibid., col. 1864.

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78 Founded in Salisbury in 1958. the Capital Club, an establishment aimed at providing “facilities [for dining, reading, lectures and entertainment] which can be used by all races”. was the only white-run club that accepted African members. However, only a small number of well-connected elite Africans in Salisbury belonged to this club, which did not serve alcohol of any kind, since its founding members included such staunch anti-liquor stalwarts as the Rev. Kachidza. See NAZ, H 15/squo;24/18: The Capital Club, Aug 1958: The Capital Club: Memorandum to Members. 22 Oct 1958.

79 BM. 7 06 1961. For a brief discussion of elite she beens in a Salisbury African township in the early 1970s.Google Scholar see May, Joan. Drinking in a Rhodesian African Township (Salisbury. 1973). p. 66.Google Scholar

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83 Reader, R.D. and May, Joan, Drinking Patterns in Rhodesia: Highfield African Township, Salisbury (Salisbury. 1971). a Debates of the Legislative Assembly (unrevised). 23rd 04, 1959, no. 60 (Salisbury, 1959), col. 3438.Google Scholar

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86 Report of the Secretary for Native Affairs and Chi ef Native Commicsioner for the Year Ended 1961 (Salisbury. 1962). p. 5.Google Scholar

87 Debates of the Legislative Assembly. 23rd–24th 04. 1959, cols 3430–3492.Google Scholar

88 Debates of the Legislative Assembly (unrevised), 16th 11, 1961, no. 3, vol. 49 sic1 (Salisbury. 1961). cols 108–125.Google Scholar

89 West, , “African Middle-Class Formation”, pp. 408–427.Google Scholar

90 Ibid.; Wild, Volker, “Black Competition or White Resentment?: African Retailers in Salisbury. 1935–1953”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 17 (1991), pp. 177–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

91 From an historical point of view, ethnicity (“tribalism”) and lobola (bridewealth) are perhaps the only other issues that were more internally divisive among the African petty bourgeoisie. On the ethnic and lobola issues, see Ian, Phimister and Charles, van Onselen, “The Political Economy of Tribal Animosity: A Case Study of the 1929 Bulawayo Location ‘Faction Fight’”, Journal of Southern African Studies, 6 (1979), pp. 1–43;Google ScholarRanger, Terence, “Missionaries, Migrants and the Manyika: The Invention of Ethnicity in Zimbabwe”, in Leroy, Vail (ed). The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles. 1989). pp. 118–150; and West, “African Middle-Class Formation”, pp. 111–121, 465–486.Google Scholar

92 This list includes, though it is by no means limited to, the current Foreign Minister, Nathan Shamuyarira, who strongly supported Stanlake Samkange's motion at the 1956 United Rhodesia Party congress; Leopold Takawira. who until the end of 1960 was executive officer of the Capricorn Africa Society and who, as a political prisoner in Ian Smith's Rhodesia, died a cruel death in 1970: and the first African advocate in Southern Rhodesia. Herbert (‘hitepo), who died in Zambia in 1974 under circumstances that an official Zambian commission attributed to inter-ethnic rivalry within his wing of the nationalist movement.