[Ugnet] Africa, Africans, and the Scientific Method

[Mitayo Potosi]

Thanks a lot Bro Roy, for the piece of the above heading.

Indeed it reminded me something many of us never fully appreciate: That the cornerstone of apartheid was not denying black people to drink alcohol, dispossessing them them of their lands, etc...  

The cornerstone was 'Bantu Education' or Mis-education to be precise.

Indeed John Voster himself said that since the lot of the 'kaffirs'  (black people) was, every morning, to deliver milk and the daily newspaper to the white homesteads, Bantu education should teach Africans only to read Street names.  Otherwise why teach him to graze where he will never graze.

Heaven knows how much has changed in the sphere of education in the new SA. But remember Mandela always insisted that the task of the new black govt was economic - to build up capital he insisted!!

Below we have nonsense from de Klerk. This article has appeared in all the major world papers. It says nothing on education. And this is the same de Klerk that has been set up in Abuja Nigeria to come up with a plan for the whole of Africa!!

When I recently called Obasanjo a buffoon some folks in turn called me an imbecile!!
Read on.........

=========================================================

Next decade crucial for S. Africa: former president@

Last Updated(Beijing Time):2004-10-12 11:36

HIV/AIDS, inequality, povertyand unemployment are serious concerns South Africa needs to deal with on its way to achieve further development in the next decade,said former South African president F.W. de Klerk. South Africans enjoyed democracy and economic growth in the past 10 years but the next decade will be crucial to determine whether the country will become the first African country to join the ranks of the developed world, he said. In a commentary published Monday in national newspaper The Star,de Klerk said the ruling African National Congress (ANC) should address AIDS, poverty and the wealth gap. HIV/AIDS has already reduced life expectancy of South Africans from 63 years in 1990 to only 47 years now, he said, adding that more than five million South Africans will die of the disease and leave behind some two million orphans within the next 10 years. The 1993 Nobel Peace Prize laureate accused the ANC of having thrown South Africa into an even less equal society than it was 10years ago. Since 1995 the GINI coefficient, which measures inequality in societies where 0 is absolute equality and 1 is absolute inequality, has risen from 0.6 to 0.63 in South Africa, De Klerk said, giving no details about how and when the study was made. Although the government has built more than one million new houses and increased welfare allowances to children and pensioners,almost half the population, most of them black, now live below thepoverty line, he said, adding that the prime reason for poverty isunemployment, which had increased among blacks from 36.2 percent in 1995 to 46.6 percent in 2002. There is an increasing cleavage between the emerging multiracial middle class and unionized labor elite and a growing unemployed class, he said. The country's success in the second decade will depend on the implementation of the Black Economic Empowerment (BEE), the ANC's ambitious plan for black ownership of land and equity and for moreequitable black representation in the private and public sectors, de Klerk said. De Klerk urged the ANC to ensure the BEE program address the needs of the poorest, rather than further enrich the emerging black elite and middle class. At present, white people in South Africa still hold most of thebest jobs in the private sector and own most of the assets, including 80 percent of the country's farmland and more than 65 percent of the equity on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange, while blacks own less than 5 percent. De Klerk, South Africa's last white president, shared the NobelPeace Prize with anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela in 1993 for his contribution to an end to apartheid and the country's first democratic election in 1994, when the Mandela-led ANC won a landslide victory.

     

"Americans are born in a half-savage country"   Ezra Pound, 1885 - 1972.

Mitayo Potosi 

_______________________________________________
Ugandanet mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://kym.net/mailman/listinfo/ugandanet
% UGANDANET is generously hosted by INFOCOM http://www.infocom.co.ug/