Teach history warts and all

But maybe memory is what young people need to be taught before they can be taught actual history.

Oldest coloured owned business in Namibia

Johannes Wilhelm Krabbenhoeft was the son of Friedrich Wilhelm Krabbenhoeft who established the trading house Krabbenhoeft and Lampe at Lüderitz, and his wife Lucie Krabbenhoeft née Forbes. He was born on 20.09.1882 at Keetmanshoop. Due to the fact that his mother was a "coloured" woman from the Cape Colony in South Africa, he had later difficulties in the Schutztruppe during the German colonial period.

Present Day (2010)

What am I doing by writing about this?
The sociology of race and of ethnic relations is the area of the discipline that studies the social, political, and economic relations between races and ethnicities at all levels of society. This area encompasses the study of racism, residential segregation, and other complex social processes between different racial and ethnic groups. The sociological analysis of race and ethnicity frequently interacts with other areas of sociology such as stratification and social psychology, as well as with postcolonial theory.
At the level of political policy, ethnic relations is discussed in terms of either assimilationism or multiculturalism. Anti-racism forms another style of policy, particularly popular in the 1960s and 70s.
On Wikipedia

‘The overall sense one has regarding Coloured identity in the new South Africa is one of fragmentation, uncertainty and confusion. For the greater part of its existence, Coloured identity was accepted as given by its bearers, and in the latter phases of the apartheid era, the emergence of a rejectionist movement created a schism between those who accepted and those who eschewed it. But the new South Africa has witnessed the emergence of a wide spectrum of positions on the nature of Colourness and a plethora of initiatives to change or influence the ways in which it is expressed. Such attempts have thus far failed to have much of a popular impact because they lack resonance with the Coloured masses and are driven by small groups of intellectuals and community activists with limited influence. The evidence indicates that many people who have gone beyond simply accepting racial categories as given are wrestling with questions about the extent to which they should express their identity as black, as African, as South African, as Khoisan, as descendants of slaves or whether they should take a stand on the principle of nonracism. There is often confusion about whether Colouredness is inherent or imposed from outside, whether it is something negative to be discarded or something positive to be embraced and affirmed. Today, Coloured identity remains in flux and is experiencing a degree of change unparalleled since its emergence in the late nineteenth century'

Aiming morality at the youth

If students are to be encouraged to be active citizens, they have to be engaged as they are, where they are, find out what their aspirations are and make space for their cares within our agendas. Morality is not going to suddenly become appealing through a document that binds you to “obey the laws of our country, ensure that others do so as well, and contribute in every possible way to making South Africa a great country”. Morality is not easily made attractive, but its cause is not helped by a disregard for the voices of young people to whom we’re preaching active citizenship

http://www.thedailymaverick.co.za/opinionista/2011-03-27-finding-an-anthem-for-a-doomed-youth

The way things are ... in Africa

http://www.namibiansun.com/story/way-things-are-africa

Pashu Shuudi writes:


ALTHOUGH hard to swallow, us black people despise everything that looks like us. To prove my point, not so long ago fellow blacks who run away from atrocities in their African countries were beaten, burned and some even killed by fellow blacks in South Africa. In Namibia, black supporters of the ruling party SWAPO and the opposition parties clashed in 2009 and we are still hearing of such quarrels or violence just in the name of politics.

Through history, I have come to learn that we actually disliked one another before colonialism, hence fierce tribal fights during those years. Colonialism united us all in the fight against a common enemy. After colonialism, we saw the rebirth of what we thought was buried long time ago, tribalism, regionalism, favouritism, etc. Although we do not like others from other tribes, we all love things that we do not produce. We love fine branded clothes, (Polo, Paris Hilton, Luis Vuiton, Nike, Adidas, Lacoste, Timberland) from Europe, we love American and German-made cars, we love expensive wine, we like Jameson whisky, Jack Daniels, Johnny Walker, Red Label, Bell’s, Scottish brandy, the beer. Yet no African person brews any of them.

All we own, unfortunately, are thousands of shebeens where we drink ourselves to death, stab each other with knives/bottles, infect each other with the HIV virus, make lots of unwanted babies and then blame others for our miseries. We love all sorts of expensive foreign made items and show them off. Yet we look down at our indigenous products that we fail to commercialise.

As blacks, we know very little about investments, whether in stocks, or in properties. All we know is how to invest our money in things that depreciates or evaporate the fastest - like clothes, cars, alcohol, and when we are at it, we want the whole world to see us. I know some brothers driving BMWs, yet they sleep on the floors, no beds because nobody will see them anyway. This is what we love doing and this is the black life, a life of showing off for those who have. A black millionaire ‘tenderpreneur’ living in Ludwig’s Dorf, Kleine Kuppe, Olympias, in Windhoek will drive to the notorious Eveline Street in Katutura for a beer where he will show off his expensive car and look down on others. We sell our natural resources to Europe for processing, and then buy them back in finished products.

What makes us so inferior in our thinking that we only pride ourselves when we have something made by others?

What compels us to show off things that we don’t manufacture?
Is it the poverty that we allow ourselves to be in? Is it our navigated consciousness, our culture or just a low self-esteem possessing us?
For how long are we going to be consumers or users of things we do not produce?
Do we like the easy way out, such that we only use and consume things made by others?
Do designer clothes, expensive wine or changing our names to sound more European make us more confident in ourselves?
Our leaders scream at us how bad the Europeans are, yet they steal our public money and hide it in European banks. We know how Europeans ransacked Africa but we are scandalously quiet when our own leaders loot our countries and run with briefcases under their arms full of our riches to Europe.

The Europeans took our riches to Europe but our African leaders are again taking our riches to Europe. Mubarak of Egypt, Gadaffi of Libya, Mobutu Sese Seko of the then Zaire, all had their assets allegedly frozen in Europe. Why do our African leaders who claim to love us run to invest ‘their’ money in Europe?

Again, when they get sick they are quick to be flown to Europe for treatment yet our relatives die in hospital queues. Don’t our leaders trust the health systems they have created for us all? Why are we so subservient, so obedient to corruption when committed by our very own people?

Nobody can disagree with me in this country that we are like pets trained to obey the instructions of their masters. I am sure we look down when we think of our broken lives, but what do we see when our thoughts are down? I wonder if we realise how we sell our dreams to our leaders for corruption, miseries, poverty, unemployment, underdevelopment and all other social evils affecting us.

How long are we going to let our manipulated minds mislead us, from womb to tomb?