Has race classification been so deeply etched on our human psyche that we can’t unshackle ourselves from its curse?
Our tragic divisive national history has fomented ethnic suspicion and distrust.
Critical race theorists pro-pose that whites are born guilty.
A Presbyterian theologian, John Frame, says: “The image of God belongs to every child of Adam, every human being.
“The Bible will not permit us to divide the human race into some who bear God’s im-age and some who do not.
“The image of God belongs to all races, all nationalities; it belongs to rich and poor, male and female, bond and free; it belongs to those who are dis-abled ... and it belongs to the unborn and those near death.”
Are the advocates of Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) intoxicated by the toxic philosophy of Karl Marx, whose objective was to create class resentment and social disorder?
In my view, modern Marxists and political activists in our beloved country have resuscitated old hatreds through the politics of resentment.
Labelling a person, a racist or bigot because they dare ex-press a different opinion is un-charitable, to say the least.
This leads to character assassination which may end a person’s career and their good standing in the community.
Current debate on these is-sues is often imprudently im-mature and hazardous.
The much-vaunted and publicized theory that SA is the Cradle of Humankind ironically and inadvertently proposes that the children of settlers are not colonizers, but the offspring of our common African ancestors, who by fate have returned home.
I wonder what the International Court of Justice will pronounce if based on this premise, objections to expropriation without compensation are lodged.
Ancestry or DNA testing may open a Pandora’s Box of identity reclassification.
The late Emperor of Ethiopia, Lion of Judah Haile Selassie, was touted as an African messiah, only for it to be discovered that he was of Caucasian heritage.
Our own Julius Malema is a descendant of a non-African Semitic race.
Malema has boldly stated he is from the Lemba clan of Zimbabwe.
The Hebrew chronicles contain the record of an Ethiopian queen’s liaison with Solomon.
Legend has it the queen insisted Solomon give their son the Ark of the Covenant as she hoped to return to Ethiopia.
The wise king, most likely, gave her a replica and to convince her of its authenticity he ordered seven Hebrew priests of the Kohanim to accompany the Ark.
These Jewish men married African women and thus the remnants of the Jewish Kohanim gene can be traced to Ethiopia.
Their descendants immigrated south and settled in Zimbabwe.
A clan called the Lemba or Buba in Zimbabwe still practices a form of Jewish rituals and even places a Star of David on their gravestones.
Genetic tests carried out by British scientists have con-firmed the Lemba tribesmen of Southern Africa have Jewish origins.
Malema, like Selassie, may discover he is less African than some descendants of the Boers who genetically can be traced to Khoisan or people of Malaysian origin.
The Bible states in Acts 17:26: “And [God] has made of one blood all the nations on the earth and has determined the times and boundaries of their habitation.”
Humbly, as a fourth-generation citizen of settler stock I consider myself, by classification, an Anglo-African.
May the “race” debate help us all to discover our common humanity.
