Tag Archives: Apartheid

Apartheid

dictionary with letter A

Apartheid: (n) in South Africa, a policy and system of segregation or discrimination based on the grounds of race.

If you’re an American citizen, you had little to no chance of having an understanding of Apartheid unless you allowed yourself the blessing of reading up on it and discovering all the subtleties.

In the 1980’s, when the issue was inflamed with turmoil, the communique in our country was to stay out of it or to side with the South African government by offering some sort of lame excuse for the existence of such prejudice.

Matter of fact, there were religious leaders in this country who insisted that Apartheid was necessary because without it, the natives (who just happened to be black) would tear one another apart because of their tribal conflicts. There were actually people who accepted this reasoning as being reasonable.

It is similar to those in the North and South during the Civil War, who feared that freeing the slaves would unleash an unholy terror of massacre and mayhem on the white population.

Matter of fact, throughout history we have decided to keep a bad system in place rather than risk bettering it. Of course, every time we’ve done this, the proponents of such foolishness have ended up looking like idiots–as those religious leaders of the 1980’s do today with regard to Apartheid.

I do not really care what tenets of philosophy and religion you adhere to, as long as you will agree with me that even though progress often takes time, the energy of the universe is always moving towards freedom.

There are countries in the world today which subjugate their population and terrorize their brothers and sisters with all sorts of rules and regulations, which will soon be as extinct as the dinosaurs and viewed by history as oppressive lunacy.

You can’t take freedom away from people without being viewed a tyrant.

So when I heard about Apartheid in the 1980’s and listened to both sides of the issue, I realized that it is a God-given right (of course, by God) for people to be as foolish or intelligent as they want to be, as long as they are free to do so.

We cannot control the actions of human beings. What we can do is provide the liberty, without question, for them to play out their philosophy quickly.

Anything written on paper that proclaims a truth will surely need to be amended … by the spirit of liberty.

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Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Africa

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

 

Africa: the second-largest continent, a southward projection of the Old World land mass divided roughly in half by the equator and surrounded by sea except where the Isthmus of Suez joins it to Asia.

I am shocked.

I sat down to write a clever essay on today’s word, Africa. when I dug into my Middle-America, middle-class, middle-intelligent and middle-conscience mind,  all I was able to conjure were images which I must be honest and tell you, seem quite racist.

Because when I think of Africa, I think of missionaries, cannibals, lions, monkeys, tribal rituals, Apartheid, jungles, Serengeti, antelopes being chased and killed, and people with black skin talking with extremely articulate British accents.

I thought about trying to come up with something different, pretending that I am cultured and aware of modern Africa and the progress the people have made. Or tip my hat to the notion that Africa is the “mother land of the whole human race,” but I realized it would be phony, and I would just be another American trying to appear that I am free of prejudice, when the truth is that, contrary to that fact, the continent reminds me of Tarzan and Jane.

I do not think we become better people by hiding our iniquity.

I do not think that I can fool you into believing I am a cosmopolitan world traveler who is free of my Central Ohio upbringing, and still walk away with a pure soul.

Here’s what I WILL say about Africa: most of what I learned as a child about this magnificent continent had something to do with either the zoo or the Zulu.

No one took the time to teach me anything else.

So even though I am grown and people insist that I’m set in my ways, I am unsettled enough to accept this meager representation of a great history and people. So I apologize for my lacking by trying to increase. Now that I have been alerted to my limitation, I will attempt to expand my borders.

We will never know what Africa could truly be today because it was invaded, attacked and robbed of its citizenry by white people who thought they were better.

I am an ancestor of such folk. For this I apologize.

But the best way I can express my contrition is by continuing to learn instead of assume.