Talk:Queen of Rhodesia/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Goldsztajn (talk · contribs) 22:32, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I'll take this, I might be up to a week before commenting. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 22:32, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

I would strongly oppose any promotion of this article to good status. "Monarchy of Rhodesia" is an entirely made-up term that doesn't exist in any reliable source. The article might be salvageable if it was re-written and re-named to "Queen of Rhodesia", but in its current form it's a hodge-podge of original research and synthesis. DrKay (talk) 07:13, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

No it isn't, its about the Rhodesian constitutional theory that only they recognised. Yes it had no international recognition, but under Rhodesian law they recognised that Rhodesia was a monarchy until 1970. If you think it should be changed to "Queen of Rhodesia" as the only holder was female, I'd be open to it. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:25, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

I think this got distracted, @Goldsztajn: could you continue the review please? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 07:32, 17 July 2021 (UTC)

Hi The C of E, yes, the comments from DrKay had me somewhat concerned about stability, so I put things on hold. If you can be a little bit patient, I'll be able to get back to this in a week. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:38, 19 July 2021 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn:? The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 12:09, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Comments

Hi The C of E, apologies for the delay, the non-virtual world has not allowed the time I had earlier hoped to go over this. Nevertheless, I thought I would leave some initial comments to see if you would like to work further on this. First, the lead is incomplete; it is too short and contains information that is incorrect. Second, the article is heavily dependent on contemporaneous newspaper reportage; which tends to give the article a news event feel, with a subsequent lack of historical analysis. Further, by relying on newspapers so much, the article focusses on the "Queen" as person, leaving aside issues related to the Queen (ie the Crown) as a political institution (although to be fair, this problem was compounded by the name change in the article).

Lead

• "Queen of Rhodesia was the title of the unrecognised constitutional monarchy claimed by Rhodesia following their Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom." This would read better as: "The Queen of Rhodesia was the title asserted for Rhodesia's constitutional head of state following the country's Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom."

• "The position only existed de facto in Rhodesian political theory" The use of de facto is incorrect here; it was de jure under the Rhodesian constitution, which is not technically "political" or "theory", rather it was existing law of Rhodesia at that time (confirmed by the Rhodesian High Court in 1968). This is elaborated in detail in Gowlland-Debbas. I think here it would be simpler and more precise to say "However, the position only existed under the Rhodesian constitution of 1965 and remained unrecognised elsewhere in the world."

• "Elizabeth II refused the title" This is not constitutionally correct; the British government never recommended ER2 accept the title, so no refusal was ever granted. Here, it would be more accurate to say: "The British government, along with the United Nations and almost all governments, regarded the UDI as an illegal act and at no point accepted the existence of the British monarch having separate status in Rhodesia."

• "The purported office ceased to exist following Rhodesia declaring itself a republic in 1970." As above, the office did exist under Rhodesian law between 1965 and 1970, but rather than make this complex (did it actually exist or not), simpler to say: "With Rhodesia becoming a republic in 1970, the status or existence of the office was no longer of relevance."

I think with further revision in the article related to the comments below, the lead could contain more detail.

Main contents

As mentioned above, the dependence on newspaper reports means there's a shortage of academic work to provide deeper historical analysis. Some examples:

• The absence of discussion of why the Rhodesian Front retained the monarchy; what political purpose did this serve? Watts, for example, argues that Smith believed UDI would not be supported by the military or the civil service if a republic had been declared. Pimlott's biography of ER2 discusses this as does Murphy.
• "The Rhodesian theory believed in the divisibility of the Crown to show their political autonomy." This sentence reads ambiguously. The divisibility of the Crown was broadly recognised well before the UDI; one would argue it was only because the divisibility of the Crown was so widely recognised that it was possible for the RF to assert/claim the existence of a Rhodesian monarchy.
• The unreferenced statement "There had been calls for Rhodesia to become a republic as early as 1966" - is contrasted with the work of Murphy, who shows the British government was promoting independence throughout Africa (including Rhodesia) from the early 1960s in specifically republican form to save the monarchy the embarrassment of being associated with the anti-imperialist politics of the African liberation movements or the white rule agenda of the Rhodesian Front.
• The names of the three pardoned men executed by the RF regime should be included (James Dhlamini, Victor Mlambo and Duly Shadrek).
• The discussion on the constitutional referendum on 1969 is somewhat limited. The reference to Catholic Church opposition is from after the event. What of opposition before the event? There's no discussion anywhere in the text of the attitudes of the liberation organisations (ZANU, ZAPU) to the constitutional change or to any of the issues related to the RF's assertion of the Queen as head of state. Furthermore, why did the white electorate move so quickly from being broadly in favour of the Queen as Head of State to embracing republicanism so comprehensively?
• I'd recommend particularly inclusion of the work of Kennrick, White and Brownell.

References

The article covers the basic events relatively well, but does not really provide depth. At this point I would not pass as GA, but let me know if you wish to work on it. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 13:29, 10 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi The C of E - just a gentle nudge; can you let me know if you'll be working on this or not? Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 22:59, 27 August 2021 (UTC)

Hi The C of E, I've not heard anything for more than two weeks, I'll assume you've other priorities for the moment and will close this as a fail. It's certainly an interesting topic (to me, at least); hopefully the comments will help with a future nomination. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 00:23, 12 September 2021 (UTC)