Baker tries to justify the unjustifiable

I tried to make sense of Dr Peter C Baker’s letter on colonialism but in the end I failed. Like Helen Zille, he is trying to justify the unjustifiable.

As an African, I have nothing to thank colonialism for. In this vast continent we suffered more than anybody who experienced colonialism.

Baker further perpetuates incorrect thinking that black Africans colonised South Africa. Whether black Africans came from the north or not, we never came from other continents. Africa had no borders then and people were nomadic during those days.

We can’t colonise our own continent. I once read a column in Sowetan years ago which made the Hlubi people look like illegal immigrants in South Africa.

It was around the time when the Hlubi chief in KwaZulu-Natal wanted to be declared king of his people and King Goodwill Zwelithini was not impressed. As a result, people sympathetic to Zwelithini tried to dismiss the Hlubi people as chancers.

Personally, I was offended by that article. I begun to think that maybe the role played by my fellow Hlubi people like Jeff Radebe, Meshack Radebe, Mtholephi Mthimkhulu, Lucas Radebe, Daniel Radebe and many others in making South Africa a better place was not enough.

That article supported the same Europeans’ version of history that most black people have issue with. Baker is telling us exactly the same version.

If we are to accept his version, we should accept that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas.

It’s a fact that Columbus came across a place with people who were already thriving. Ancient ruins in Peru, Mexico and the Amazon prove that people who lived before Europeans got there were excellent architects.

Machu Picchu in Peru is a perfect example that native tribes there were not hopeless people.

Richardson Mzaidume Pimville