EDITORIAL: Rewriting the script of Africa’s future
Once again, an old and tired tale is being told – this time echoing from the far-right corridors of global politics and whispered by their ideological cousins in South Africa. The fantasy? That should a so-called "great trek" of white Afrikaners abandon Africa for American shores, the continent would unravel into chaos – starved of leadership, starved of infrastructure, starved of hope.
It’s a racist relic disguised as prophecy, a threadbare myth woven in the shadows of apartheid’s long and bitter twilight. Namibia, like South Africa, knows that past all too well. The suggestion that without the white man’s hand on the tiller, Africa would collapse into primitive ruin isn’t just historically false – it’s an insult dressed as analysis.
Those who peddle this ideology do so with arrogance inflated beyond reason. They envision a continent plunged back into some prehistoric era, its cities crumbling, its people reduced to wandering tribes. It’s a dystopian fiction meant to stoke fear and fortify white supremacy, not reflect reality.
Unfortunately, the burden of proof now falls on Africa’s leaders – black, white, and everyone in between – to dismantle this lie with action, not just argument. Our roads must remain open, our schools must grow in excellence, our hospitals must heal, and our economies must roar into the future.
To falter would be to give credence to men like Janusz Waluś – the convicted murderer of Chris Hani, now free, unrepentant and still spouting the poisonous claim that black governance spells doom. “The end of a properly working country,” he said. And what have South Africa’s leaders done to silence such hatred with the undeniable evidence of success?
Too little. And that must change.
It’s a racist relic disguised as prophecy, a threadbare myth woven in the shadows of apartheid’s long and bitter twilight. Namibia, like South Africa, knows that past all too well. The suggestion that without the white man’s hand on the tiller, Africa would collapse into primitive ruin isn’t just historically false – it’s an insult dressed as analysis.
Those who peddle this ideology do so with arrogance inflated beyond reason. They envision a continent plunged back into some prehistoric era, its cities crumbling, its people reduced to wandering tribes. It’s a dystopian fiction meant to stoke fear and fortify white supremacy, not reflect reality.
Unfortunately, the burden of proof now falls on Africa’s leaders – black, white, and everyone in between – to dismantle this lie with action, not just argument. Our roads must remain open, our schools must grow in excellence, our hospitals must heal, and our economies must roar into the future.
To falter would be to give credence to men like Janusz Waluś – the convicted murderer of Chris Hani, now free, unrepentant and still spouting the poisonous claim that black governance spells doom. “The end of a properly working country,” he said. And what have South Africa’s leaders done to silence such hatred with the undeniable evidence of success?
Too little. And that must change.
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Namibian Sun
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