Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
Marc,

Just a quick point to something you should look at:

Bob Ramsey's paper on advisors has some great insights on the cross-cultural misread in our advisory efforts.
Hi Tom,

I just downloaded them, but I haven't had a chance to read them yet. I'll probably get to them on the weekend (too much other stuff on the go right now).

Quote Originally Posted by Tom Odom View Post
Back to the Rhodesia issue, timing is often everything. The Rhodesian war reached its peak as the government and army of South Vietnam collapsed. And to a large degree, it was popularly seen as an extension of dying colonialism. It is interesting to look today at the Wikipedia entry for the Second Chimurenga (The Rhodesian War); the article identifies the 2 rebel groups as communist, split by theior backers: Russians the ZIPRA; Chinese and NK, ZANLA). To find that the 2 were actually ethnic based, you have to go to sublistings for their armed wings. Nkomo's ZIPRA was Ndebele. Mugabe's ZANLA was Shona.The Ndebele were offshoots of the Zulus and had long dominated the Shona. In independent Zimbabwe, Mugabe ultimately made sure that the Shona won. Unfortunately Zimbabwe is still losing.

best
Tom
The older I get, the more suspicious I get about history (wry grin). I remember when I was a kid of about 9 or so, talking with my great uncle about his fathers' part in the Boer War. Since my father was doing a fair amount of work in South Africa and Botswana at the time, I got really interested in the historical movements of the various tribes and groups and tried to read up on them There's actually a surprising amount of anthropology on Africa - part of the links between British Social Anthropology and the policy of indirect rule that was used throughout large parts of the empire).

Later on, I think it was 1974 or 1975, I remember when Nkomo's brother came to Ottawa trying to drum up support for ZIPRA. What I found fascinating was that he was quite open about the tribal nature of the conflict: he called it a three-cornered civil war. I can't remember if he ever said that in a public forum, but he certainly did in private small groups.

I found the dichotomy between the private understandings and the public rhetoric, both in Rhodesia and in South Africa, to be quite informative. I think it's why I have a tendency to look at mediaspace now whenever I consider conflict.

Marc