The Basarwa,
or Bushmen, were the first people to inhabit Botswana. They
enjoyed a separate sustainable lifestyle
until the Kalahari Desert was declared a National Park and they were stripped of their lands and resettled in “civilization”. When they
were “civilized””against their will, they did not understand or want to join
the working culture so they live off unemployment government funds and ever
since alcohol was introduced into
their lives, severe alcoholism has
put them in more severe poverty.
This story breaks my heart, but it is not an isolated incident. Even in the
United States, where we claim to be civilized and good and set a shining example for the rest of the world, our
country has subjected Native Americans
to the same plight and repeatedly mistreated them and stripped of their
homelands.
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