Ian Smith Quotes
Declaring independence was the most traumatic decision I had to live up to. Because I didn't want to do it.
Smith, Ian. The Great Betrayal: The Memoirs of Ian Douglas Smith. Blake Publishing, 1997.
“Esto perpetua” is Latin for “May it be forever”. Ireland had just obtained the right from England to pass their own laws in their own parliament. They were still under English control but now they were like a colony and not under day-to-day control.
See {585494},65902, and {585496}, for more quotations on this.
Compare Abraham Lincoln's Liberty And Union.
Madison was defending the proposed Constitution against a vocal minority who complained that the Federal government would be dominant over the States and the large cities. Madison pointed out that it was people who fought the Revolution and sacrificed for it, not States or political entities. The Constitution was to be for the people, not the existing governmental entities. It was for Americans and not for local politicians. The “State’s Rights faction lost the debate, and the Constitution and Bill of Rights was adopted. That is why this quotation is so important. The slavery enthusiasts, racists, and others have constantly tried to diminish the Federal supremacy even to this day.
At the partition if India into Hindu and Muslim States, what is now Bangladesh, was a part of Pakistan called “East Pakistan” by the Pakistani government. While India became a thriving democracy, Pakistan with its combination of military strongmen and Islamic Fundamentalists did not fare as well and became a very corrupt, undemocratic military nation. East Pakistan was not contiguous with the rest of Pakistan and was culturally quite different and less religiously fundamentalist. While all Pakistanis suffered from poor government, the East Pakistanis fared worse. Finally, they developed their own identity which was suppressed by the military dictators of Pakistan and the Banglas revolted and Bangladesh became and independent nation.
Ian Douglas Smith GCLM ID was a Rhodesian politician, farmer, and fighter pilot who served as Prime Minister of Rhodesia (known as Southern Rhodesia until October 1964 and today known as Zimbabwe) from 1964 to 1979. He was the country's first premier not born abroad, and led the predominantly white government that unilaterally declared independence from the United Kingdom in November 1965, following prolonged dispute over the terms. He remained Prime Minister for almost all of the 14 years of international isolation that followed, and oversaw Rhodesia's security forces during most of the Bush War, which pitted the unrecognised administration against communist-backed black nationalist guerrilla groups. Smith, who has been described as personifying white Rhodesia, remains a highly controversial figure—supporters portray him as a man of integrity and vision "who understood the uncomfortable truths of Africa," while his opponents consider him "an unrepentant racist."
