South Africa
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South Africa South Africa has a long history. Since a lot of human beings look at my words, I have decided to write on this issue since the recent events going on in the country of South Africa. Its history begins with black human beings as the first human beings on Earth in the great continent of Africa are black. It is found in the southern tip of Africa. It has been in the international news a lot lately. Many viewers here are from South Africa, so I decided to write about South Africa. It has over 51 million human beings living there. Its population is mostly black African in about 80% of its population, but it is still highly multiethnic. Eleven languages are recognized in the South African constitution. All ethnic and language groups have political representation in the country's constitutional democracy. It is made up of a parliamentary republic . Unlike most Parliamentary Republics, the positions of head of State and head of government are merged in a parliament-dependent President. South Africa has the largest communities of European, Asian, and racially mixed ancestry in Africa. The World Bank calls South Africa as an upper middle income economy. It has the largest economy in Africa. South Africa has been through a lot of issues in the world. Also, South Africa can make a much better future. Apartheid is gone, which is a good thing. It is good to not see reactionary mobs and the police to not massively kill university students in Soweto. It is good to not allow certain papers dictate your total travels. It is a good thing to not allow innocent activists to be jailed or face house arrest based on their opposition to South African apartheid. That is a good thing indeed. Now, it is important for us to understand real issues in the world. We should go out and learn about the rich cultures of the world. Africa has a special place in my heart like always since it the origin of human life. It has great value and beautiful fauna including flora. Its people are very strong, intelligent, insightful, and one of the strongest members of the human liberation movement in the world. I am a black American, so Africa is in my mind, body, soul, and spirit forever. A Summary of South Africa’s History More than 170,000 years ago, modern human inhabited Southern Africa. There was a huge Bantu speaking human migrations into South Africa. Many of them use iron, some were agriculturists including herdsmen. They can be found thousands of years ago in south of the Limpopo River. Some of them displaced, conquered, and absorbed the original Khoisan speakers (or the Khokhoi and San peoples). The Bantus worked in iron work too. The Xhosa is one famous ethnic group in South Africa. The Xhosa and Zulu peoples are important in South African history as well. The Portuguese Europeans navigates the cape of South Africa. They failed to extensively colonize the territory of South Africa, because the local Khoikhoi human beings resisted their aims. So, the Portuguese came into the Mozambican coast that was filled with bays, prawns, and links to gold ore in the interior. So, it is always the system of white supremacy trying to dominate and control lands in Africa. Soon, the English and the Dutch challenged the Portuguese in the region for trade routes. Western imperialism continued to grow. WE MUST ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT EUROPEAN IMPERIALISTS (INCLUDING THEIR WESTERN COHORTS) THEN AND NOW ARE ALWAYS THE ENEMY. THAT IS WHY THEY ALWAYS REFUSE TO TOTALLY LIBERATE AFRICAN PEOPLES, BUT TO USE ENTITIES TO FURTHER DOMINATE AFRICAN RESOURCES. AT THE END OF THE DAY, I BELIEVE IN GLOBAL BLACK PAN-AFRICANISM. I WILL NEVER HATE HUMANITY REGARDLESS OF THEIR COLOR (ALL HUMANS SHOULD BE TREATED WITH DIGNITY AND WITH RESPECT), BUT I WILL ADVOCATE FOR JUSTICE FOR MY PEOPLE (WITH OUR GREAT DARK MELANIN) THOUGH. SO, I WILL USE RIGHTEOUS ACTS AS A MEANS FOR FIGHT FOR JUSTICE . Many who came into the cape was a stopover for scurvy ridden crews. In 1647, a Dutch vessel called the Haarlem was wrecked in the present day Table Baby. They were rescued and the crew recommended that a permanent station to be established in the bay. The Dutch East India Company (or called back in the day by the Dutch with the term of Oostindische Compagnie, or VOC) at first did not want to colonize the area. They wanted to form a secure base camp for passing ships could shelter and hungry sailors could stock up on fresh supplies of meat, fruit, and vegetables. A small VOC expedition came under the command of Jan van Riebeeck. Jan van Riebeeck reached Table Bay on April 6, 1652. The Dutch traded with the neighboring black Khoikhoi out of necessity. Their relationship was not exactly friendly and the Dutch authorities made deliberate attempts to restrict contact among the Africans and the Europeans. The VOC soon had a labor shortage. So, the Dutch allowed settlers to create farms. These farms would supply the VOC settlement with harvests. It was successful with forming abundant supplies of fruit, vegetables, wheat, and wine; they later raised livestock. The small initial group of free burghers, as these farmers were known, steadily increased and began to expand their farms further north and east into the territory of the Khoikhoi. Most of the burghers had Dutch ancestry. Most of them were from the Calvinist Reformed Church of the Netherlands. This is similar to most Americans being religiously Protestants and Baptists today. Some of the burghers were from Germany and Scandinavia. Some of them came into South Africa to escape religious persecution under King Louis XIV. In addition to establishing the free burgher system, van Riebeeck and the VOC began to make indentured servants out of the Khoikhoi and the San. This was immoral and this was another tactic of white supremacy (which is to falsely dehumanize black human life and try to rule in lands that they never originated were in at the first place. No human should be an indentured servant point blank period). They or the VOC imported slaves into South Africa too from Madagascar and Indonesia. This was immoral. Many of these slaves married Dutch settlers (and their descendants were known as Cape Coloureds and Cape Malays. These are what we call biracial or multiracial human beings in the 21 st century). Significant numbers of the offspring from the White and slave unions were absorbed into the local proto Afrikaans speaking White population. We know that today, false beauty standards are advanced in Western society as a means to brainwash humans of color to accept inferiority complexities. The VOC expanded in the north and the east and it caused clashes with the Khoikhoi. The newcomers drove the beleaguered Khoikhoi from their traditional lands and destroyed them with their weapons when they fought back, which they did in a number of major wars and with guerrilla resistance movements which continued into the 19th century. So, this slick European imperialism started the apartheid system in the first place. This imperialism dealt with the theft of black African land and the unjust attacks on black human beings. Imperialism is always the enemy of any free people, especially us who are of black African descent. Europeans also brought diseases which had devastating effects against people whose immune system was not adapted to them. Many Burghers expanded into more territories. Some formed a pastoralist lifestyle. Many of them were religious. Their descendants became known as the Trekboere or Wandering Farmers. They are also known as the Boers. Many of the Boers were independent of official controls, self- sufficient, and isolated. They attempted to live their lives based on the teachings from the Bible (you can make your own conclusions about that. That is ironic to say the least). Now, the worst British imperialists (since their Empire stretched into multiple continents in a brutal fashion) tried to conquer South Africa as early as 1795. The British caused an oppressive slavery system harming human beings in South Africa. The British forced many of the Boers to live in farms. The British Empire discriminated and harmed the lives of black human beings in South Africa as well. It was good that slavery was abolished by the British Empire in 1833. Many Boers were wrong to oppose that abolition back then. Yet the British settlers' conservatism stopped any radical social reforms, and in 1841 the authorities passed a Masters and Servants Ordinance , which perpetuated white control. This continued the wicked system of white supremacy against black human beings. Meanwhile, numbers of British immigrants increased rapidly in Cape Town, in the area east of the Cape Colony (present-day Eastern Cape Province ), in Natal . More diamond and gold finds in South Africa, caused more Europeans to travel into South Africa for the purposes of greed and exploitation not genuine love for humanity. In the 19 th century, the Zulu Empire grew in a greater fashion in South Africa. Shaka Zulu was the famous that expanded Zulu territory. They were undercut by British imperialists, but all of us understood Shaka Zulu’s bravery and strength during his life. The Great Trek dealt with the Boers too. Many of the Boers grew increasingly dissatisfied with British rule in the Cape Colony . The British proclamation of the equality of the races particularly angered them, and they were also unhappy with the process of payment of compensation for slave-owners whose slaves had been freed. The Boers were wrong on that front since all men are created equal regardless of race and slavery is always immoral.