Shyaka Kunuma’s article “It’s time to stop whining” is a great piece of work, and I am not only saying that because I agree with the message. I have been trying to say the same thing for 10 years, with very little success. May he be more successful at getting the message across. The fundamedntal flaw in conventional African political reasoning is to focus on what victims we Africans are, and to fine-tune assignment of blame. The problem with this is that assigning blame does not solve a problem. The colonialists who wrought havoc, no matter how precisely we pin blame, are not going to come back to undo the damage. Nor can they undo the damage to the African psyche as Biko told us, only the victims of oppression can liberate themselves psychologically. Instead of being such champion victims, if we focused on what we could do for ourselves, problems like the low value of African life would be addressed. A fundamental outcome of focusing on one’s victim status is to be disempowered, and helpless. The next thing is to lose self-esteem. Once you have no self-esteem, your life becomes worthless. How can worthlessness of African life fit the concept of ubuntu? Interestingly, the one group I have been able to reach agreement with consistently on my views are black consciousness adherents from the Biko era. I remember a conversation in Massachussetts about 10 years ago with such a person, and her husband from West Africa. She kept agreeing with everything I said, and he kept harping on blame. What a pity Biko was done away with. We could really use someone of his calibre today. But remember his message of psychological liberation: we can still work on it. I would like to see an ubuntu movement to propagate the idea that being African does not require being a victim. Self-esteem would be a core idea, with developing a sense of pride in achievement, not in being able to claim world champion victim status. Philip Machanick, school of computer science, University of the Witwatersrand