South African Apartheid Propaganda

Paper Summary:

This paper examines a 1968 book by Clive Cowley, "Fabled Tribe: A Voyage to Discover the River Bushmen of the Okavango Swamps", which presents the racist and paternalistic attitudes that helped sustain South African apartheid. The reader can be swayed easily into thinking that this is scholarly source, the author suggests, because Cowley, who is not an academician but instead a South African journalist and a spokesperson for De Beers Diamond Company, uses a factual and descriptive approach rather than a more appropriate argumentative or personal tone. The paper explains, however, the many errors in Cowley's so called facts that are used to deride further the Khoisan or Bushman, thus infiltrating the minds of white South Africans with major biases.

From the Paper:

"From reading his background, the reader learns that he has no scientific expertise since he is a South African journalist and a spokesperson for De Beers Diamond Company. De Beers Diamond Company is notorious for engaging in unethical business practices (such as price fixing), exploiting South African land mines, and marginalizing the people who live there, especially the Khoisan. Hence, the fact that Cowley is a spokesman for such a seedy company possibly sheds light on his personal character and his disdain for the Khoisan."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Appel, Steven W. "Outstanding Individuals Do not Arise from Ancestrally Poor Stock": Racial Science and Education of Black South Africans." University of Rochester Press: Rochester, NY. 1989.
• Cowley, Clive. Fabled Tribe: A Voyage to Discover the River Bushmen of the Okavango Swamps New York, Athenaeum, 1968.
• Curtin, Phillip, et al. African History. Longman Publishing: New York, NY 1978.
• Dubow, Saul. Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa. Cambridge, England. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Webster's Dictionary. New York, New York. 2004.

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