A Different Kind of Hitler Story

In his autobiography, Born a Crime, the comedian Trevor Noah talks about the names of black South Africans. Since the whites could not pronounce African names, the natives would have to (also) take on a name for whites to use, the so-called English name. This English name was chosen at random – “plucked from the Bible or taken from a Hollywood celebrity or a famous politician in the news”. Thus, names like Napoleon, Mussolini and even Hitler.

 

Such names offend whites, but Noah is unapologetic. The whites came, invaded, occupied, treated the natives like crap, did not educate them, and then act offended by the fact that the blacks don’t know history (of whites) and pick names like Mussolini and even Hitler. Whereas, as Noah says:

“Many black people in South Africa don’t really know who Hitler was.”

Noah’s own grandfather thought Hitler was a tank since all the news said it was crashing through Europe! Many South Africans considered Hitler good because he had white Europeans on the run, terrified, so much so that were willing to recruit even (lowly) blacks to fight alongside them against Hitler. And the blacks who did learn of Hitler treated that info the way all of us do in school:

“They’re just facts. Memorize them, write them down for the test, and forget them.”

 

That last part (“forget them”, including Nazism) offends whites. But why should the South African care, asks Noah. Hitler and the Germans barely did anything to Africans – yes, they seized and conquered northern parts of Africa during World War II, but that was one set of whites taking from another set of whites. Who did the maximum evil in Africa? The British, the French, the Dutch, the Americans and even the Belgians with their King Leopold (check this link for an idea of what he did. It is horrific even by the standards of that era).

“Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that’s especially true in the West.”

So why is the West surprised that South Africans don’t agree with them on who is the most evil man in history?

“If black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler.”

Remember Cecil Rhodes? The “discoverer” of South Africa. As if black humans didn’t already live there before this white European came. This is how whites write history – Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci “found” the Americas. Even though native Americans, Incas, Aztecs all lived there long before white Europeans came along with their wrecking balls.

 

In white history, Napoleon and Hitler are “bad” because (1) they were not British conquerors, and English speakers write the history books, and (2) both men tried to conquer white land, not the “undiscovered” lands of Africa or the Americas. Sadly, white/Western propaganda machinery is so good and has been working for so long that many people, even non-Westerners, believe that “history” to be true. And will call any attempt to rewrite events, even of their own lands, as a lie.