The cruelty of capitalist Town Councils (part 1)
By Shivute Kaapanda [Think Tank Africa]
With the Roman-Dutch legal system in place and the fact that Namibia’s political independence was won on the employment of a “beggar’s tactics and strategies” to appease the cruel Caucasoid masters, it’s a matter worth examining by the African indigenous people.
It’s time we realize that our situation here in Africa as black people is not a mistake on the part of white people but a deliberate act which no amount of moral lecturing will persuade the whites to self-correct.
The mission for the colonial masters in Africa has not changed after Africa achieved the begged-for independence; rather it only manifested itself into a different but much more ruthless form: Capitalism.
This is why Africa is still labeled as the poorest continent of the world yet it’s full of resources feeding the whole world.
The mission of Capitalism as a Western concept is still as devilish as Imperial Colonialism was: to deplete Africa’s resources and make those that once determined Africa’s independence richer. That Africa is literally becoming poorer at the expense of its former colonizers was one of the pre-conditions of Africa’s political independence.
Like foreign religions which make Africans believe in answers which are really not answers at all, this political independence is also not really independence at all; it’s simply the continuation of the old episodes of merchant-imperialist-colonialism with new capitalist-slavery tactics.
Since the thesis is Independence, our unity as Africans is the only anti-thesis we can employ to get over this predicament and not the beggar-tactics which were employed by the founding fathers of African political independence.
With urban areas being the major playgrounds for capitalism and economic racism, Capitalism is a fountain for perpetual servitude for black people in Africa and heaven on earth for the white population.
Imagine the world without capitalism! In a capitalistic world the nature and order of things is always problematic and there are always those who benefit from the system (capitalists) and those that are the victims of it (the poor).
Take an example of a capitalist town council which wants to establish itself or expand its capitalist boundaries – it’s the poor who are always required to move away far from boundaries of towns, with compensation which is again determined by the capitalist town councils.
The capitalist town council does not care where to resettle the evicted poor; it only concerns itself with monies and not the social well-being of the poor section of the society. The capitalist town council will divide the piece of land which it “bought” at a cheaper price from the poor into plots, service the land and sell it at exorbitant prices hundreds of times more than what they gave to the evicted poor.
Or the town council would sell the land to rich capitalist developers who will then build flats for the people to rent or buy at exorbitant prices.
The modus operandi of a capitalist system is very disturbing and devilish indeed.
The system is evil and cares more about money and lifestyle of the capitalist while caring less about the poor; the poor are powerless and only have to obey the logic of capitalism in all their spheres of life.
# Shivute Kaapanda is an African writer from Eyanda village in Omusati region. He is also a columnist and author of the book called “The Conscious Republic”.iskaapanda@gmail.com
