THE WHITE MEN'S HELL RULE through their Education
Alafia87:
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We can only act in a manner that redresses whatever is wrong with our lives as individuals and societies once we accept the realities of our predicament. Once we accept the losses we have suffered, admit the failures and defeats we have undergone, digest the mistakes or misperceptions that might have caused the situation in question.
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Yeah. We should first accept the situation we are in and then work to change it.
Motingwa I:
Greets
It feels like all the while we are watching the brainwashing continuing under our very noses; i.e. our younger brothers and sisters, even youths, appear to be going through the same education system that made us into what we hate. Yet it is like there is nothing we can do about it.
Was not the world, including Afrika supposed to be going forward; getting better; developing to where today would be better than yesterday? It is true that much has been revealed to us that was hidden before but I would hate for the younger generation to have to go through the same act of de-colonising the mind as we did. Why shouldn't I rather enjoy seeing someone grow up who was taught CORRECTLY from the first?
There is a proverb in my country which says that a rod is shaped when it is still green and young. That it because a dry and mature branch will tend to break when bent.
And what I said before about the more well off or 'privileged' among us being some of the worst human beings can still hold for those who are less priveleged or opressed. It hurts to see a one who is a victim of an unjust system being the one who defends it even more ardently than its author like the policemen do. At least these 'worst human beings' I talk of are STILL HUMAN BEINGS.
Peace
Ras Paul
lado:
Quote from: Motingwa I on June 08, 2009, 11:27:40 AM
Greets
It feels like all the while we are watching the brainwashing continuing under our very noses; i.e. our younger brothers and sisters, even youths, appear to be going through the same education system that made us into what we hate. Yet it is like there is nothing we can do about it.
Was not the world, including Afrika supposed to be going forward; getting better; developing to where today would be better than yesterday? It is true that much has been revealed to us that was hidden before but I would hate for the younger generation to have to go through the same act of de-colonising the mind as we did. Why shouldn't I rather enjoy seeing someone grow up who was taught CORRECTLY from the first?
There is a proverb in my country which says that a rod is shaped when it is still green and young. That it because a dry and mature branch will tend to break when bent.
And what I said before about the more well off or 'privileged' among us being some of the worst human beings can still hold for those who are less priveleged or opressed. It hurts to see a one who is a victim of an unjust system being the one who defends it even more ardently than its author like the policemen do. At least these 'worst human beings' I talk of are STILL HUMAN BEINGS.
Peace
Ras Paul
Greatful to you Mr Montingwa of your messages to us which , if you give me the prvillage to add this writers poem from Kenya forewarded to me by a Danish woman philosopher Mrs Akua Serwaah who approves of it ------ the poem reads -----
WHITE MANS HELL RULE......... POEM, BY BANTU MWAURA KENYA.
WRITTEN TO USE, AT A SPECIAL SUMMIT 1997 IN NAIROBI, FOR " THE CHURCH WORLD COUNCILS COMMISSION " .
THIS POEM NEED NO COMMENTS.
TRANSLATED FROM DANISH.
* All this education kills us!
Children, how happy we are,
that you are born with a good head.
Thank god, that he blessed us,
with children who work hard.
But all this education,
no doubt will kill us.
When you came in to high school,
my sun, we sold all our cows,
to feed your brain.
No milk for the one year old,
but put all our hope on your head,
and you did not let us down.
That is , why education really kills us.
You did well, my daugther,
and we brought all our cows and goats to the market.
We closed our eyes,
to invest in your brain.
You also showed the teacher,
that you can "chew" books with stiff cover.
Nothing earthly left.
Thats the way education kills us.
In the village now,
everybody talks about us.
We keep our heads raised high,
because you have to mingle,
between people, who read and finish all the books.
I am told that, it is called university.
As we already know,
all this education will kill us.
Children, come here and tell us what to do.
We have sold everthing we owned and had.
The government has raised the studypayment.
If we sell the land, we live on,
were do we go to....?
education has ruined us.
Then, children,
we cant sell ourselves.
Allthough we know,
education has value.
Do we sell the land,
we will perrish.
We will have no livelihood.
If you want to go to the university,
they kill you.
If you insist on your rights,
our hope will disappear.
No livelihood.
Then, tell us what to do.
Because all this education kills us slowly
Bantu Mwaura, Kenya
Motingwa I:
On the subject of language, there is something that I have been noticing for several years as a Rastaman. It is definitely a result of the way we were raised in school. Having gone to an ‘English Medium’ school since primary or ‘grade school’ (first 7 years of school), I remember how we used to sometimes get scolded for speaking our native language at school even if it was among ourselves standing in the walkways or playing during recess! Looking back I think the scolding created a ‘rebellious - ness’ in us which was also based on a consciousness of being black! Personally I remember instances when with my friends we would deliberately speak our mother tongue so that we couldn’t be heard by the white kids. It really wasn’t an act of hate but a natural love for our language and in any case some jokes could only be understood by ones who felt oppressed because of their colour every now and then. The teacher couldn’t be there all the time but the ‘rule’ did have its negative effect on us.
The thing which I say I have noticed as a Rastaman is that nowadays whenever I have an argument with someone in my family I always see how quickly an angry person switches to English! That is why I always think that English has become for us the ‘language of hate’ and our own language the ‘language of love!’ The mere fact that one switches to English can actually be a sure sign that a one is angry and therefore perhaps not even speaking rationally. The effect is as if one speaks in English as the language of authority in order to win an argument.
But who can blame us: the television is almost always on, speaking in English; ones spend their days getting educated with English as the medium – whatever books you read, whatever newspapers, whatever music result in even a lot of our very thoughts being in English!
I have a friend who went to school in the U.K. and when he was here on vacation, he wasn’t the first person I had heard saying that other Africans who are not from Botswana often remark that Botswana youths are always speaking English, even among themselves! Locally it tends to be only ‘privileged’ kids or those who went to the better schools (i.e. private schools) from a young age that tend to even speak English when the whole conversational group would understand if they spoke in the local language. But even among ‘rich kids’ the mother tongue still holds a special place deep down as it is evident that they tend to smile more and become warmer as soon as they for some reason switch to the native language.
The white man’s language is all pervasive. Even in the local vernacular we have adopted some English and Afrikaans (the language of the ‘Africanised’ Dutch man spoken in South Afrika) words and given them an Afrikan pronunciation to the extent that newcomers (youths and foreigners who wish to learn our language) do not know that some of these words are ‘borrowed.’ Most of such words are names of things deemed, sometimes wrongfully, to have no equivalent in our language because they were ‘brought by white civilisation.’ We have chosen to ‘borrow’ the words for such things as tables, machines, computers, forks, cups, plates, books, glass windows, glass … the list is endless. It is interesting that some of these things actually do have Tswana names like books and windows, and when they don’t it is often possible to improvise by describing the thing using a short phrase (which most people are too lazy to do) for the sake of keeping our language ‘pure!’
As a one conscious of the newfound gloriousness of Black I-story I often feel proud when I realise that some things like iron and iron-ore do have Tswana names and therefore must have been known before whites came.
.
One other negative result of the language of colonialism is therefore that many of our people hold to be true that ‘if the whiteman hadn’t come we wouldn’t have so many of the good things’ or that ‘the whites are geniuses and we are not.’
Another negative result that I actually hear people in the street ‘complaining’ about is also the phenomenon whereby the ‘first’ language that many Batswana youths of today (especially the youngest) is actually English! I am yet to see how far reaching this is having no youths of my own and not having any children under ten in our household. I can imagine what it is like for youths who are born albeit of Batswana parents abroad who are raised speaking more English. It is a pity that some of these youths even at home can become victims of hate coming from those who feel less ‘privileged’ or ‘educated.’
Peace
Ras Paul
EmpresKeneilwe:
Humble Greetings,
Ras Montigwa, I can oh so well, as I was raised in Soweto. Adnd it's so true about certain things that cannot be told in English as it loses it's truthful meaning when translated in English.
The other day I was watching a program called "Zabalaza Language". The presenters went to different schools, both rural ("ghetto") and urban (surburban) areas. The only similarity between the 2 is that both learn English. The differences are many. Some would love to be fluent and the other are so fluent that they have created an accent.
It's amazing the "June 16" riots happened for all things, "English is better than my mother tongue".
But it's so sad that, as much as English is a medium of instruction, our native tongues have been sidelined, even at the lowest levels of education, i.e. nursery schools. I blame the black community at large, that they dont encourage the usage of mother tongues. We cannot even count in Setswana, nor do we know how to say the days of the week or months of the year in our language. Everything is messed up, but it's too late to teach the youth from an early. There's a saying in Zulu, that goes "ligotshwa lisemanzi". Direct translation, fold it while it's still wet - meaning teach them while they are still young. In the words of Immortal Technique, "The mind of a child is where the revolution begins". It is our responsible to maintain that kind of mentality.
Strength, peace and Oneness.
Keneilwe
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