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OK, time to cross the streams of the “Colonialism is good” thread and the #Nambia gaffe with a charming story of Western ignorance. 1/n
Wonder why Namibia has that odd strip of land pointing east like a finger? It’s the Caprivi Strip, after German chancellor Leo von Caprivi. 
The German colony of South West Africa was wedged between British and Portuguese colonies and separated from German Tanganyika in the east.
So in 1890 Caprivi negotiated with UK for a strip of land that would connect SW Africa to the Zambezi river which flowed east.
Germany got the strip and Heligoland in the North Sea in exchange for Zanzibar. Great deal right?
Only problem was that the Zambezi is not navigable. Victoria Falls is a 40 miles downstream of the strip. 355-foot drop. 🙄
Pretty funny except that the people who live in Caprivi are ethnically and linguistically closer to people in Angola, Botswana, and Zambia.
So there has been a separatist movement, which flared violently in the late 1990s. Today, they have a flag but apparently not much else.
Sigh. /the end
PS. If you enjoy stories like this, I gave a lecture several years ago on The World's Strangest Borders.
