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Showing posts from January, 2022

The Blame Game

I doubt this will be a long post because my thoughts on this issue are being fleshed out. But, in recent months I've become aware of something peculiar; the willingness of African governments to scapegoat colonialism as an excuse for the failures of their policies. The logic is rather simple; our debt is high because colonialism prevents us from being treated fairly. Our people are suffering because colonialism produced unbalanced underdevelopment in the nation. Our institutions are weak because the colonizers installed a system of governance that could not accommodate them. And while there is truth to these arguments, their deployment as tools of rhetoric cheapens the reality of the situation. It turns the history of colonialism, and the suffering of the people within it, into another political tool. Just another way to deny and dismiss the material reality of the people, today. Just as the colonisers did .   No man mastered this technique quite like Robert Mugabe. Following a di...

If You're Poor, Just Work Harder!

Let's start at the beginning.  Last week on a podcast, Love Island alum, and current influencer, Molly-Mae Hague made a boo-boo. The 22-year-old influencer said: " You're given one life and it's down to you what you do with it. When I've spoken about that in the past, I have been slammed a little bit, with people saying, 'It's easy for you to say that, you've not grown up in poverty, you've not grown up with major money struggles, so for you to sit there and say that we all have the same 24 hours in a day, it's not correct.' And I'm like, but technically what I'm saying is correct . We do - so I understand that we all have different backgrounds and we're all raised in different ways and we do have different financial situations,  but I do think if you want something enough, you can achieve it."  And the internet blew up.  This statement is damning. Not only does it reveal her privilege, but it also revealed her ignorance. F...