APARTHEID STILL EXISTS TODAY IN DIFFERENT VERSIONS

The symbol of apartheid divides people in answering nature's call.

The bible is the best book to read, even though many don't value it. That book can transform a man to be upright, sincere, truthful, faithful, and spiritually strong in whatever he does.

However, there are certain quotations in the holy book that I am not happy about. It may likely be that the scripture was tampered with, and a few things in it were changed for the white man to dominate black people.

For example, in the time of Jesus, there wasn't any camera; therefore, who saw Jesus and all his images appear to be a white man in today's modern scriptures? I guess the person who took Jesus Christ's photo also met the devil that tempted Jesus, and he gave him a snap. He was black.

 

According to Genesis 1:27, "So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." While in the same bible in Ephesians 6:5, it reads, "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ."

The question I need an answer to, but never found, is if "God created man in His own image, then who is the master and who is the slave?" Studying the bible thoroughly, you can even discover some of the scriptures about discrimination and racism.

One specific example is in Song of Solomon 1:6, "Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother's sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I had to neglect."

If I am right, based on the scripture above, Western Europe and the US governments were very angry with Africans because of the color of their skin and subjected a whole race to all kinds of cruelties, including slavery, colonial brutality, segregation, Apartheid, and the deliberate infection of diseases.

No person in this world would treat his fellow human being in such a manner if he or she has a love for that person. Africans are never loved, else there would never be a statue of a lunatic king who maimed and killed millions in Africa, including women and children.

Despite all this, they hate it when you speak the truth about the horrible crimes they committed against Africans. This is something I don't understand. Why do you have the delight of committing a crime? And why are you happy to see the country you once colonized suffering, yet wouldn't like the truth to be spoken?

I can't imagine African leaders taking possession of Europe, then dividing the people, telling them, This is the queue of the white man at the post office and that for the black man. This is the toilet for the white man to 'shit' and that for the black man. White only swimming pool and black only, etc. 

This is what happened yesterday, during the Apartheid era, and still exists today in a modern version in some European countries and the United States of America. In many Western European countries, true justice is never given to the black man.

Western European Governments and the US must ponder over the years and take the endless crimes they have committed in Africa into consideration. The continent that is your obsession to destroy continues to provide you with all your rich mineral resources today to maintain a flourishing economy.

As for Africans and their leaders, it's their actions and thinking that will justify who we are. If you want to be a doormat, people will walk on you, and if you prove to be intelligent, you will repel the oppressors. If any of you lack courage, I will wake all of you from decades of long sleep with the words of the great Steve Biko of South Africa.

Steve Biko said, "Black consciousness seeks to talk to the black man in a language of his own. It is only by making familiar the basic setup in the black world that one will be aware of the urgent need for the reawakening of the sleeping masses."

Related article: STEVE BIKO: LEGEND OF A POLITICAL HERO

South Africa's political legend, the great Steve Biko

"He stressed, "It urges black people to judge themselves as human beings and not to be fooled by the white society, which has white-washed itself to enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks; Biko pointed out that the logic behind white domination is to prepare the Blackman to serve and give him respect." 

The stone the builders refused at long last became the cornerstone. The world is rapidly changing. Who knows, Africa will one day be a haven for Europeans and Americans? A word to the wise is enough.

THE SYSTEMATIC ABUSE OF POWER IN COLONIAL AFRICA

The image of humans used as transport was another abuse of power in the colonial era in Africa.

During the colonial era in Africa, the masters often received the respect accorded by Black people out of fear. Based on this misconception that Black people fear them, they abused their power horrifically and inhumanly without regret or remorse.

However, the myth that a Black man fears a white man is total nonsense. Europeans scrambled over Africa with sheer brutality and aggression, subduing Africans; therefore, they were too vulnerable and powerless to react. 

The same abuse and oppression of Black people exist today in many European countries and the United States of America. If not for the Black Lives Matter demonstration after George Floyd's death, there would still be statues commemorating key figures who committed horrible crimes against humanity during slavery and the colonial era.

The fathers of independence, such as Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Patrice Lumumba of Congo, had no fear of the British and Belgian governments. 

They gained independence for their countries, but because Britain and Belgium actually feared them, Nkrumah was removed from power in a coup masterminded by the CIA, and Patrice Lumumba was assassinated in a plot conceived by the Belgian government. 

In apartheid South Africa, Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, and his colleagues had no fear of the minority apartheid leaders. Despite the force of brutality they unleashed, maiming and opening fire on protesting, defenseless South Africans, they murdered Steve Biko and put other ANC key members, including Nelson Mandela, behind bars for twenty-seven years because they feared them. 

When it comes to crime, there are many white criminals out there, as well as Black criminals, but the Black man is always given a second look because of the color of his skin. Just being Black makes you a suspect. In the United States of America, Black drivers are more often stopped and harassed than white motorists.

In Belgium, being Africans among white workers, all eyes were on us as suspects when sandwiches had been missing every time from the dining hall. The atmosphere becomes tense when, on the fifth day of the week, one of the workers finds his food stolen again.

This time, the management decides to do something about it. They secretly started their investigations, creating an undetected hideout, aiming to catch the person responsible for this theft red-handed.

 

The following week, about a quarter to noonday, a mysterious man emerged into the quiet dining hall, looking for a meal to steal. After tasting some meals, he found a delicious one, and he took it. As he tried to walk out, he was intercepted.  

 

Colonial power in Africa took all that it wanted and destroyed the souls of Africans.

Shockingly, out of hundreds of workers at the company, the mysterious thief appeared to be one of our colleagues from Portugal. The sandwich thief was Portuguese, not African.

The need to respect all races

 

It is absolutely wrong to take the respect someone gives as a reason to treat him very badly. Many enjoy being racist; some people like to discriminate against Black people, calling them degrading names, but the question is, what do racists get from hate? Nothing is more significant than violence and the destruction of property.

Who lives forever, and what makes you think your color is better than someone else's when there is a big difference between the color white and real black? If white people's color is white like white paper, I think everyone who sees them will run to hide somewhere in fear.

Respect doesn’t mean fear; therefore, those who have that sick mentality should begin to dismantle it from their brains because racial problems have caused too much death and violence, and without respect for other races, there will never be peace on earth.

F.W. De Klerk should have faced justice in the Hague like Charles Taylor

An image of F.W. De Klerk

In the political reality of our world, justice has never been equal. It bends, it selects, and it protects those who benefit from its fragility. Frankly speaking, there has never been anything called “justice” for the Black man or the South African under apartheid. 

 

If true justice existed, F.W. de Klerk, former president of South Africa during the apartheid era, should have faced trial at the International Criminal Court in The Hague for the crimes committed under his leadership, including the killing of defenseless children.

 

Like a bird freed from its cage, de Klerk moved on with life, conveniently forgetting the brutal actions, racist philosophies, and oppressive regime he presided over. 

 

Today, he even dares to label Nelson Mandela, a global icon of peace, as a “brutal and unfair” political opponent. He speaks boldly because he knows the European-centered justice system has always favored leaders who carry bloodstains on their hands.

 

De Klerk never deserved to share the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize with Mandela. He released Mandela from prison only because the apartheid system was collapsing under global pressure. Yet he claimed Mandela was “not faultless.” That accusation is absurd. 

 

If Mandela was not faultless, what about de Klerk, whose regime murdered schoolchildren in cold blood? Mandela fought for his people’s freedom; they killed Steve Biko, but they could not silence Mandela.

 

Charles Taylor deserved to face justice for supporting Foday Sankoh and fueling atrocities in Sierra Leone. No one disputes that. However, when we consider the scale of crimes committed by apartheid leaders, decades of torture, massacres, racial segregation, and state-sponsored violence, none of them should have escaped judgment.

 

 Yet every one of them walked away with impunity because they were “white vampires sucking the blood of innocent Black people.” If the situation were reversed, the International Court in The Hague would have lined up every Black leader for trial.

 

The world cannot pretend that justice is blind. It sees color. It sees power. It sees political alliances. Charles Taylor’s imprisonment cannot be used as proof that the International Court is doing a good job. Partiality rules in The Hague, and history has shown this repeatedly.

 

If Nazi leaders are still hunted today for the killing of six million Jews, as they should be, then any surviving apartheid leader, and every foreign leader who supported that evil regime, including former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, must also face justice. 

 

Only then will the world believe that the International Court in The Hague is truly committed to fairness. Justice must not be selective. Justice must not be racial. Justice must not protect one group while punishing another. 

 

Until the crimes of apartheid are treated with the same seriousness as other crimes against humanity, the world will continue to witness a justice system that favors the powerful and abandons the oppressed.

STEVE BIKO: LEGEND OF A POLITICAL HERO

The great Steve Biko: He sacrificed his life to make what South Africa is today.

 

In the political history of South Africa, many are those who fought against the evil apartheid, oppression, mass arrests, detention without trial, etc. 

Along the line with Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Chief Buthelezi, etc, in the struggle to emancipate blacks from hardships was Steve Bantu Biko, who died in detention before he could see the fall of apartheid years ago, in South Africa.

Although Steve Biko is gone, his great achievement and his part in the struggle to free South Africa, under the previous white minority rule, will always be remembered. 

Steve Biko, the man popularly known as the "Father of Black Consciousness Movement," was born in King William's Town, Cape Province in South Africa, on December 18, 1946. He lost his father at the tender age of four.

After his primary and secondary school education in South Africa, he left for the Lovedale institution in Alice. He received his higher education at the Roman Catholic Marianhill in Natal and entered the medical school of the University of Natal in 1965. 

As an active member of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), his heart was increasingly in politics. He left NUSAS and formed the South African Students Organization (SASO).

Regarded as one of the fearless critics in South Africa, along the line with Nelson Mandela, despite both having different views and options, Biko faced the white regime squarely. 

Not by violence, but through his writings, which he named "I write what I like." The white regime found his writings as nothing but the simple truth and thought his letters posed a threat to national security. He writes:

Black consciousness seeks to talk to the Black man in a language of his own. It is only by making familiar the basic setup in the Black world that one will be aware of the urgent need for the reawakening of the sleeping masses. 

He stressed, "It urges black people to judge themselves as human beings and not to be fooled by the white society, which has white-washed itself to enjoy privileges at the expense of blacks; Biko pointed out that the logic behind white domination is to prepare the Blackman to serve and give him respect. 

Even in sports, Whitman wants to do everything for themselves, all by themselves, by keeping Blacks to stand at touchlines to witness the game they are playing.

In his writings, he always stressed and talked openly against whites, saying that "there is no doubt that the color question in South African politics was originally introduced for economic reasons. 

Because the selfish white leaders installed a barrier between blacks and whites so that they could enjoy what belonged to Blacks. 

To avoid influencing the various Black groups in South Africa, which gave him much support and recognition, Steve Biko was arrested and detained many times under Section 6 of the Terrorism Act in South Africa.

In many cases, he was always released. But on August 18, 1977, when Steve Biko was arrested and detained under the same offense of terrorism, little did everybody know that he would not be seen again. 

He was taken to Port Elizabeth, stripped naked, and tortured to death. His autopsy stated that he died of brain damage. Those responsible for his death lied that he died on a hunger strike in detention.

Unfortunately, Steve Biko wasn't alive to see what he sacrificed his life for: the fall of apartheid. However, on the eve of the 33rd anniversary of his death, it is worthwhile to say that "September 12 of every year should be declared as a public holiday in the Republic of South Africa, in honor of that great man.

If a day in America is observed as a holiday for the civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., then the late Steve Biko should be given that recognition, too, in South Africa. Steve Biko died at the age of 31. He left behind a widow and two boys aged seven and three.