3 - ‘The Rhodesian Army Was the Best in Everything’

Summary

Once the RAR was an established, regular force, new forms of micro-level solidarities particular to regular soldiers took root, which fundamentally differentiated these soldiers from other combatants. professionalism of the Rhodesian Army was institutionalised and embedded during its transformation to a regular army, and was modelled upon British practice, doctrine, and traditions. This chapter thus uses a literature which has studied the British practice of creating soldierly cohesion and loyalty. Incorporating the arguments of military sociologists, particularly the work of Anthony King, and historians, it shows how a soldierly identity was shaped, which itself fed into an ideal of soldierly professionalism which become co-constitutive. Through extensive training, black RAR soldiers acquired great confidence not only in their own abilities, but also those of their peers, whom they could expect to fight for them in difficult situations. Underpinning these professional norms was a system of military discipline that relied upon a quasi-juridical form of oversight, which my interviewees attested was rational and fair.