Latest News Editor's Choice


Opinion / Blogs

White settlers never stole any land from Africans

11 Jul 2011 at 14:41hrs | Views
This interesting article was extracted from timeslive as it it. It goes like, Black Africans never owned any land. Any form of formal ownership is a Western concept. You cannot take something from somebody WHO NEVER HAD IT. In fact, what is it that white people, specifically white men, are supposed to "give back" to black people?

LAND:
Black Africans NEVER owned any land. Any form of formal ownership is a Western concept. The 'black' tribes of the mid 19th century haphazardly SETTLED in an ad hoc manner - effectively governed by tribal savagery, in other words, the most savage ruled the land (a bit like Hillbrow today). They simply ran away until they could not run anymore - not having ANY grasp of the concept of a horizon or for that matter any measure of finite land mass - eg the boundaries - that is the fundamental concept of ownership.

Who "disadvantaged" the 'black' people of the interior in Southern Africa before the (supposed) belligerent 'white' settlers moved inland in the mid 19th century..? As certainly, what the 'settlers' found was not a hugely advanced infrastructure, deep mines, airports, vast libraries of written works, grandiose institutions of learning, etc. No, as little as 170 years ago they found masses of black people (indigenous to the Southern tip of Africa, The San) living on the fringes of the stone age. Beings in skins, wielding sticks, living primitive dwellings, dragging and carrying things around, who had not even invented the wheel yet.

Insert by Herman Griessel:- The San were the indigenous people of Southern Africa, if there needs to be any Land Reform it should be with the San, the rest of the Black African tribes as well as the White are and were all immigrants to Southern Africa, including Zimbabwe, and from other parts of the world and Northern Africa.

The linguistic core of the Bantu family of languages, a branch of the Niger-Congo language family, was located in the region of modern Cameroon and Eastern Nigeria. From this core, expansion began about three thousand years ago, with one stream going more or less east into East Africa, and other streams going south along the African coast of Gabon, Democratic Congo and Angola, or inland along the many south to north flowing rivers of the Congo River system. The expansion eventually reached South Africa probably as recently as 300 A.D

Ethiopia - a country that was NEVER colonised. Today one of the most desolate places on the planet - who "disadvantaged" the people of Ethiopia..?

Put Zimbabwe and Germany next to each other and please explain the differences. In 1945 Germany was (for all intents and purposes) flattened to the ground and torn in half. Fifteen years later, West Germany was described as an "Economic Wonder". Around the same time as the end of Apartheid, Germany was re-unified. It yanked the (unified) Germany back four centuries in time.

Yet, in (around) fifteen years (for the second time in a few decades) it built an 'economic wonder' - today, fast becoming a global leader in almost every aspect. Reminder: a lineage very strongly associated with... WHITE AFRIKAANS SPEAKING people...

Insert by Herman Griessel:- I am a third generation White South African semi retired Farmer, my Grandfather arrived in the Cape in 1895, having originated from Southern Bavaria Germany, and took part in the second Boer War (1899 – 1902), against the English off course. I disinvested in Agricultural Land in South Africa in 1994, 16 farms employing ± 2, 000 Black African people, I could see what was coming, and here it now is. Google my name Herman Griessel, and read my story of farming on the borders of Southern Africa from 1975 and onwards.

On the 'flip side' - Zimbabwe - was handed one of the wealthiest countries in the WORLD (eg a currency that was worth more than the USA Dollar, etc) - what is it today..? Competing with Ethiopia to be the most desolate hell-hole on the planet..? Please explain...

Quote from Ian Johnston an ex Rhodesian, has published a book "Thru Thick 'n' Thin, a must read, and who happens to be my neighbour:- Remember '' We won the land from the mosquitoes and the tsetse flies''

And what he is implying here is that the White African Rhodesians, through the technology of the day, won back large tracts of land that was riddled with tsetse fly and Malaria, where before the Black African could not settle or graze their cattle, nothing was ever taken from them, in retrospect their very lives were enhanced and improved to the extreme in comparison.

The below insert from just the other day March 2011, this is what Zimbabwe has come to, and no one lifts a finger.

By Tariro Madzongwe

HARARE, Mar 25, 2011 (IPS) - The identity of as many as a thousand decomposing bodies in an abandoned mine in Mount Darwin, 100 kilometres north of Harare, may never be known. "War veterans" associated with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party are removing them with no regard for preserving evidence.

You cannot take something from somebody WHO NEVER HAD IT..! In fact, what is it that white people, specifically white men, is supposed to "give back" to black people..? Can someone PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE explain to me what it is that white men took from blacks?

Money, Capital and the pivotal mechanisms of the wealth that allows you to breathe, eat, have children, live a rather healthy productive and fulfilling life, but also allowed the cognitive development that leads to metropolitan development and infrastructure as we see it today - it is ALL of Western origins. In fact, the key advancements in modern finance and economics were made by the... ....DUTCH. Why do you think it is called 'Wall Street'..? It was initially 'Wal Straat' - yes my dear, the Dutch took their cognitive substance there as well... The same Dutch that were the most direct descendants of the people that landed at the Cape in 1652 - in fact, the modern 'WEALTH system' was originated by the Dutch and it funded the explorations around the tip of Africa.

Mmmm... I just hate the implicit assumption that 'whites' stole from 'blacks'...

Author: J. Theron - Brisbane Australia – July 2011

Insert from London Times: "South Africa is the only country in the world where affirmative action is in the favour of the majority who has complete political control. The fact that the political majority requires affirmative action to protect them against a 9% minority group is testament to a complete failure on their part to build their own wealth making structures, such that their only solution is to take it from others."

Source - timeslive
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
More on: #Land