So last week, I posted a brief description of the FACTS surrounding settling in South Africa.
I presented the basics about the migration of Bantu tribes from north west Africa, roughly 200 years before Van Riebeeck arrived in the Cape, and I invited everyone to do their own research.
Then one comment reminded me why facts are NEVER going to make an iota of difference in South Africa.
A commentator named Thato Hoppkins Rapatla said this (and I am quoting verbatim, so all grammar and spelling errors are his:
"this is a very tired and old apartheid apologetics tactic that falls flat when u actually analysis the entire episode retrospectively
The question is not about who came here first, the issue is black people where never given a chance to self governance and self determination in their own land,
clearly u have never herd of the native land act of 1913... emphasis on the native part (even you racist bigoted ancestors acknowledged that we darker skinned people are native to these lands)
when the boers and English created their union in 1910 the only thing they unanimously agreed on was the continued disenfranchisement, exploitation &oppression of blk people
which they subsequently did..
closing note: Its funny how white people always assume the higher moral ground when it comes to race based issues ( AA BEE land redistribution ) yet sat idle buy while institutionalised racism spanned 3 centuries, when the nationalist party took power in the late 40s their campaign slogan was apartheid, they received 60% majority in parliament ergo 60 percent of white adult are by definition racist.. I am sure the majority of u attained voting age during the 80s the apartheid golden era.. happy to continue the legacy... history has been your judge and found you wanting"
Clearly, either there are people out there for whom all history ends the moment apartheid started, or they are only focused on what OTHER settlers did to their people.
This is a classic case of missing the point in a spectacular fashion.
The FACT here is and remains that black South Africans are as much settlers in South Africa as white South Africans or Indian South Africans. They do not have a claim that dates back millennia, as it sometimes seems they would like to have the world believe.
As for the 'never having a chance to govern' etc, what about the 200 years between when the tribes arrived in South Africa from the north?
What about the SPECTACULAR failures of the past twenty years?
Arguing about unrelated topics that none of us were actually physically involved in doesn't change the facts, and the facts are that while I will agree that the apartheid government and British settlers WERE colossal D bags, they did not steal any land from anyone.
What they did do was arrive in a land recently settled by tribes that did not have their levels of technology or organization, and do what people did in those days. Colonized it.
The fact remains, my man, that no matter how much you want to ignore historical fact and rewrite all your history books so they start in 1912, you can't.
You are as much a descendent of a settler in South Africa.
When you and everyone else can finally admit that, and we can all stop squabbling about something that none of us has more right to than each other, THEN we can move forward.
Or.. you could try destroying every history book in existence and obliterating the internet... but I think that might be tricky.