In Southern Africa, there is a nation that has gone under a multitude of problems over the course of its existence. Once an African nation led by a white minority, now it’s led by an African majority.

Once a nation economically and culturally considered western, now it’s considered African. Once a nation that prioritised the white minority, now it priorities an ethnicity of the black majority. Once a nation that was economically prosperous, it is now economically ruinous.

This description is obviously about South Africa, however, this description also fits the nation of Zimbabwe, once called Rhodesia, which is what this article is about. What are the faults and attributes of each nation? Just to make note, Rhodesia was a nation that became Zimbabwe, they’re the same nation, no border changes, just a name and political party change.

There are 2 main things these countries differ on, that being race relations and economy. In Rhodesia, they had a very strong economy, once considered the breadbasket of Africa, however, among race relations they made the discriminatory laws, which did things like reserve a majority of the land for the white settlers and gave on a portion of the land for the native Africans, this was called the Land Apportionment Act of 1930 (this happened while Rhodesia was still a British Colony).

Then there’s Zimbabwe, in which the first President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe (a communist), is blamed for destroying the entire Zimbabwean economy by distributing land from white people to black people, mainly farmland.

The problem is that he gave this farmland to black Africans from urban environments, so they had no knowledge on how to farm. The Zimbabwean government inflated their currency at a rapid rate and now it’s worthless, they printed trillion dollar bills and now have switched to a completely new currency, but the change has still not been felt.Also, since their farmland has been run into the ground with incompetency from non farmers, they now have to import most of their food and goods into the nation, just to feed their population.

But they have given rights to black people, which they did not have in Rhodesia, they are also working on giving back farmland to white and foreign national farmers, when it was taken. However, that process has been slow thanks to rampant corruption in the government.

In terms of quotes, when asked which nation would be more preferable, Diego Morales, a freshman said “Rhodesia is better because at least some of the community has money to be able to buy things than the whole economy doing badly and instead of Zimbabwe where everybody can’t buy anything.” Bryson Hinds, another freshman said, “I would live in Rhodesia.”

In conclusion, Rhodesia and Zimbabwe have opposing statuses and policies. Rhodesia had discrimination, but it has a highly prosperous economy. Whereas Zimbabwe has less discrimination, but an extremely poor economy. One so poor it’s considered a Low Income Country by the World Bank. Overall, the failures of this nation through its entire existence would have been completely avoided if Rhodesia had simply followed the United States in the concept of civil rights.