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Publications & Reports

Bleek considers the collective destiny of the black man in a globalising world. His concern seems to be the squandering of masses of rational beings and how best to adapt them to the current industrial age. He problematises the strong emotions behind religious hatred and political arrangements toward blacks. These intense (irrational) emotions are central to race-related conflicts like the long-lived fighting north of the Great Namaqualand between Bantu and Hottentot groups. He recommends intervening in Damaraland to protect nearby European settlements by forming a quasi-sovereign company.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

02/02/1865

Two cut out columns of newsprint text, positioned vertically parallel, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. No title was subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.

An original cutting of a Victorian article (no printed thematic title included in the cut out) by WHI Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Thursday, February 2nd, 1865. Here, Bleek invokes the Social Darwinist cadence remarked on by Andrew Bank (2006), which features in some of his earlier writings. There does appear to be a sort of code-switching across his writing which may simply be dictated by his audience or, perhaps too optimistically, used to offset some of his more radical liberal recommendations published in the same article. He calls the white man "superior" before alluding to the pseudo-philosophical and pseudo-scientifc nature of certain research attempting to provide solutions.