“Pretoria has been made by the White mind for the White man. We are not obliged even the least to try to prove to anybody and to the Blacks that we are superior people. We have demonstrated that to the Blacks in a thousand and one ways. The Republic of South Africa that we know of today has not been created by wishful thinking ... By now every one of us has seen it practically that the Blacks cannot rule themselves ... " (you can read the rest of the hate speech here)
Then I stumbled on a statement made by Professor James D. Watson a 1962 Nobel Price winner for his work and discoveries about the human DNA. In 2007, in a newspaper interview after the publication of his "Avoid Boring People" book, he made the following remark: " [I am] inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because all our [foreign] social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really".
Then there are these widely accepted, documented and data backed claim that the East Asians and Jews are the most intelligent, followed by the Whites while the Blacks and Aborigines are the least intelligent as a racial group.
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| image: gatesofvienna.net |
From my experience as a Nigerian and interactions with other races, the hate speeches are wrong but not completely wrong. As a group we are less intelligent than most other groups. But they got it wrong by trying to put the reason on our genes and grouping people by race. The truth is the IQ research result are simply a great proof of the positive/negative power of culture and social beliefs.
We are were we are as a continent, nation and people because of the choices we make, the aspirations we have, the knowledge we build on and the culture we embrace. That is why there is a black man in white house, that is why there are blacks doing great feats comparable to that of any race, that is why there are blacks smashing academic records in American and European universities. Our obsession with not looking beyond the surface that led to classification by skin tone into races is not sensible. People are different based on their choices and not by their phenotype.
The society we live in and the culture we grow up in has more effect on us than the race we belong. Our geographical and cultural differences is the main reason for our differences and not our skin tone. The reason some people are more intelligent than others is because they chose a path and grew up in a culture that brought out their intellectual potential.
The reason South Africa is attacking foreigners is because they chose to do so. Not because racist Botha was right or Watson was correct. It's not a matter of genes but of choices.
Great article bro. It is all about choices. Africans kind of have a knack for taking the most convenient choices, particularly avoiding sacrificial and painful paths. We hate to inconvenience ourselves for anything, no matter how temporary.
ReplyDeleteSouth African blacks are simply expressing years and decades of repressed hate and un-forgiveness for the Whites that colonised them by taking it out on other nationals.
ReplyDeleteI remember a doctor mentor of mine explaining what he found out when he emigrated to SA to practice. He said he found standard hospitals, well-equipped but the black South Africans were unwilling to take up the jobs because they were still angry at the people/regimes/mindset that built them, and denied them access for decades. They just couldn't make the paradigm/mental shift.
[Just as in the bible when the Israelites became free by leaving Egypt but still carried a slavery mindset, the black South Africans' mindset still is in the pre-independence/apartheid era.]
He said that what do you expect the typical, 'sharp' Nigerian to do? Of course, we began migrating there to help them utilise their facilities, and that was when the hate and anger was transferred to us/other nationals.
They need a mass mental shift all over the country.
And just as in the case of the Israelites -even God cannot help a people who have the wrong mindset...until they make the shift or die (in the wilderness).
First it was rape, now xenophobia. Who knows what will be next? God help Black SA.
Hi Doc. Thanks the insightful comment!
ReplyDelete