Quote Originally Posted by BayonetBrant View Post
Personally, I think the Rhodesians got screwed, and the rest of the world is loath to admit it, because of the inevitable screams of 'racism' that will inevitably accompany anyone attempting to voice support for a post-colonial nation that had a white-skinned head of state resisting an "opposition" of black-skinned terrorists.

I'm interested in the lessons of Rhodesia at least in part to help avoid future catastrophes where superficial narratives obscure much deeper ethnic problems (paging Dr Kosovo!) and that the "public" solution often ends up being far worse than even status quo. Is Zimbabwe/Rhodesia really better off after 30 years of "self-determination" (read: "mugabe"-determination) than they would've been under the government that existing in 1974?

Additionally, the individual tales are, quite frankly, a riot to read.
The world is not yet ready or mature enough to discuss such matters rationally - as evidenced by the recent thread in the Journal. And that was arrogant yet totally ignorant Americans.

Better one looks to the current CAR and South Sudan for - once again - graphic proof of how thin the veneer of civiliazation really is. Have just spent a year in West Africa you can pull more examples from there. Not to mention Rwanda.

Disclaimer - before some luntic clown points a finger and screams racism at me I need to place on record that the Bosnia example proves (as did the Germans 70 years ago) how thin that veneer of civiliazation is universally.

But here we talk of Africa.

Xenophobia to the extent where people from different tribes/religions will be killed at a drop of a hat - if they stray into the wrong area - still exists as evidenced in many examples from across Africa on an almost daily basis (as it does in gang areas in LA and elsewhere).

The problem is that many Africans deny the existence of tribalism on the basis that it makes Africans look uncivilised and undeveloped ... and sadly there are idiots out there who believe this.

I had an experience in Mozambique about 20 years ago where at a program meeting which was attended a senior (female) USAID person (the donor) we all were told by her that there was no tribalism in Mozambique. I dared to ask her how she had arrived at this position and she responded - I kid you not - that her driver had assured her of this. (she was shagging her driver).

I realised at that moment that if relatively senior US decision makers on the loose in Africa were that gullible/ignorant then all was lost.

Twenty years on it has - in my humble opinion - got worse.