LETTER: Not everything in the colonial period should be condemned as immoral
During the colonial period there were also courageous people who condemned exploitation and oppression and tried to provide justice for indigenous people
Such was the outrage from all and sundry, including her own DA leader, Mmusi Maimane — who stated: Let’s make this clear: colonialism, like apartheid, was a system of oppression and subjugation. It can never be justified — that Zille felt obliged to apologise "unreservedly for the tweet that may have come across as a defence of colonialism. It was not". Colonialism has an ancient lineage going back to Greek and Roman times. However, in our political context, it is European colonisation that needs to be interrogated. This kind of colonisation is of more recent origin and formed part of imperial expansion of the great European powers. It was premised on the immoral principle of the inferiority of people of colour, who were as a result subjugated and oppressed for the material and trade advantage of the metropolitan powers concerned. In the process the European powers obtained fabulous wealth from vast colonial Empires, the greatest of which was the British, on which the sun was said n...
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