So under apartheid in South Africa and colonialism, in Rhodesia, the majority was excluded from recognition, treatment and acceptance as equal human beings on the basis of racial and ethnic criteria.
Has this perverse culture left us? Has it been relegated to the dustbin of history?
The liberation war in Rhodesia, and the armed struggle in South Africa, were predicated on the commitment to rid the region of this culture and to ensure that all would be equal, possessed of the same rights. The Freedom Charter says as much.
So has that objective been achieved? Do we now insist that every compatriot must be recognized, accepted and treated as an equal?
Sadly, the answer is NO!
Daily we see posts on social media in which some aspect pertaining to a compatriot is dredged up and posted so as to "differentiate" that person (or persons).
A typical example is to posit Whites as "colonialists", even though they were all born long after colonialism existed.
Another example is to condemn Coloured folk for thus defining themselves as being neither Black nor White which is actually a genetic, anthropological reality.
Another example is reference all Black folk as having the mentality, culture and mode of Robert Mugabe and his party.
So too, as regards Gays and lesbians who are condemned and persecuted for their sexual orientation.
Thus we see a post on the Zimbabwean Patriots site in which Whites are taken to task for not having learnt an indigenous language. We see statements like "a White person can never be an African".
Notable is how personal insult, vilification and denigration is visited on those of us who have independent and non-conformists mindsets.
All these examples are no more, no less, a manifestation of the "four legs good, two legs bad" syndrome that George Orwell so brilliantly portrays in his classic work "Animal Farm".
All these posts and comments have one thing in common. They seek to differentiate compatriots. They are designed to draw attention to some aspect, real or imagined, about the compatriot referred to, that can be used as justification NOT to recognize, accept and treat that person simply as an equal.
In this way we see that the culture of "exclusion" is alive and kicking in our region.
It is a dangerous diabolical mentality.
It played its part in Ghukurahundi. It was a fundamental driver of the xenophobic killings in South Africa in which our people were cremated alive.
This camp of "exclusionists" have no affinity to the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights (UDHR) that makes this statement at its very start -
"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world .. "
They want compatriots to be seen as different. They do not want a culture of universal acceptance and brotherhood.
Why?
The reasons are somewhat complex but include, in the main -
a) highly affected grievances promoted by the political camp to which they belong; e.g the so called Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa and ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe; (the political camp promotes the exclusionist culture to hide, mask and obfuscate their failures).
b) concomitantly, feelings of personal inadequacy, inferiority and uncompetitiveness in relation to the person(s) they attack.
c) poor personal culture internalized subjectively on account of defective environment and education, e.g, most of these bright sparks have never even heard of the UDHR.
In this way we see that there are those who piously lament the past, in which humans were excluded from recognition, acceptance and treatment as equals ...
.... whilst now seeking to pontifically do exactly the same thing to others.
In this way we see how the oppressed becomes the oppressor.
I this way we see old supremacism being replaced by new supremacism.
It is this culture that ultimately led to the Holocaust in Germany and genocide in Rwanda.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Order --- theother.orgfree.com.
Order --- theother.orgfree.com.
