Cross Cultural Encounter Study #1
The Battle of Isandlwana
Introduction
In the late 19th century several European countries were trying to gain control of Africa and its wealth. Great Britain was one of the most successful in robbing land from the Africans. In order to win the acceptance of the Afrikaners, the British waged a war against the Zulus, a neighboring tribe of the Afrikaners. The British had perhaps the best trained and best equipped army in the world complete with modern repeating rifles. The Zulus, by European standards, were primitive people with weapons dating back to the stone age. But the results of this battle were a shock to all of western Europe. The purpose of this web assignment is to look at this battle and try to answer some important cultural questions. You will read an account of the battle, some information about the weapons each side used, and about the mentalities of the Zulu and British culture. You will use this information as clues in order to: 1) write an explanation of why the battle turned out the way it did, and, more importantly, 2) discover why each side interpreted the actions of the other as barbaric when each side believed themselves to have acted according to the accepted rules of civilized battle. Thus we shall learn about the misunderstandings that occur when two very different cultures collide. Make sure to keep these two questions in mind as you begin this activity.