OPINIONS - EDITORIALS | 2013-12-06
Racism and the Destruction of Value
WHAT is to be done? (click here) It is worth evoking this seminal pamphlet written by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, in 1901/2 when dealing with racism and the destruction of value (life or property) in Namibia.
Namibians of different skin colours too easily switch to the racial divide as a default mode when, for instance, a white person shoots a black person ostensibly to keep “them” away from their property. Blacks, excuse the generalisation, believe a white person does not value their lives and whites are convinced blacks do not value their property. Each carries an element of truth, but skirts the real issues.
During colonialism and apartheid, blacks encouraged one another to steal from and generally cause the destruction of white-owned property. The introduction of colonialism itself was premised on the destruction of the colonised, in our case black people, and thus white people (again at the risk of generalising) have come to believe that black people and whatever property they owned were of lesser value than theirs.
We wish we could have said that was then. But the reality is that the past is still with us and it does not seem like this new nation called Namibia has even began to do something about exorcising the ghosts....
Is opportunity value? Because if opportunity is value, then it explains the wealth gap between races.
Racism and the Destruction of Value
WHAT is to be done? (click here) It is worth evoking this seminal pamphlet written by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin, in 1901/2 when dealing with racism and the destruction of value (life or property) in Namibia.
Namibians of different skin colours too easily switch to the racial divide as a default mode when, for instance, a white person shoots a black person ostensibly to keep “them” away from their property. Blacks, excuse the generalisation, believe a white person does not value their lives and whites are convinced blacks do not value their property. Each carries an element of truth, but skirts the real issues.
During colonialism and apartheid, blacks encouraged one another to steal from and generally cause the destruction of white-owned property. The introduction of colonialism itself was premised on the destruction of the colonised, in our case black people, and thus white people (again at the risk of generalising) have come to believe that black people and whatever property they owned were of lesser value than theirs.
We wish we could have said that was then. But the reality is that the past is still with us and it does not seem like this new nation called Namibia has even began to do something about exorcising the ghosts....
Is opportunity value? Because if opportunity is value, then it explains the wealth gap between races.
