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History subject compulsory in schools to fight xenophobia

ALEXANDRA - African history should be a compulsory school subject to development an understanding African countries and their people's interconnectedness.

African history should be a compulsory school subject to develop an understanding of African countries and their people’s inter-relatedness.

This was said in reference to xenophobia attacks by angry mobs who alleged that foreign nationals steal jobs, peddle in drugs, promote prostitution and introduce criminal syndicates in the country.

Joel Lekgetho of Bokamoso Centre for Restorative Justice linked the attacks to locals’ ignorance of the linkages of the African people. “This derives from colonisation of the continent after its partitioning by Europe at the Conference of Berlin in 1884. The exercise was to exploit the continent’s resources first by killing any resistance, destroying local cultures and exploiting its human resources for cheap labour. This enabled Europe to change names of places, obliterate and desecrate places of historical significance and denounce African cultures and rituals as pagan.” Lekgetho added that Africans were forced to adopt European names to appear civilised.

Lekgetho stressed that the strategy worked effectively resulting in artificial borders sewing the current mentality of division between relatives and people of the same culture. He said a process was required to change this and the rewriting and teaching of African history should be a priority to help children know and understand their identity and inter-relatedness. “It will be the start to respecting each other and valuing the mutual benefits deriving from the differences and will contribute to re-engineering the continent, strengthening its political freedom and improving its economy through partnerships of the African people based on mutual trust and a sense of togetherness.”

Lekgetho stressed that correctly rewritten history will also prove blood relationships of local people with those in other countries. It will reveal the “possibility of some of the xenophobia attacks having pitted brother, uncle and aunt against each other in a war of the poor”.

Details: Bokamoso Centre for Restorative Justice 082 415 5241.

 

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