David Thusi
Bio
✍️ I write about stolen histories, buried brilliance, and the fight to reclaim truth. From colonial legacies to South Africa’s present struggles, I explore power, identity, and the stories they tried to silence.
Stories (16)
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Generative AI & Knowledge Gaps
Introduction: The New Knowledge Divide Generative AI promises to democratize creativity and knowledge, making vast worlds of text, images, and ideas accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Yet beneath this promise lies a troubling paradox: the very data on which these systems are trained reflects a deep imbalance in whose voices, values, and philosophies count as knowledge.
By David Thusi4 months ago in Critique
How Generative AI Could Help Transform South African Policing
Introduction: A Crisis of Trust South African policing faces a deep crisis of legitimacy. Too often, communities experience officers not as protectors, but as enforcers of arrogance, superiority, and disrespect. The gap is not simply one of crime control, but of broken relationships of power, communication, and empathy. When police are feared more than they are trusted, democracy itself is weakened.
By David Thusi4 months ago in Writers
Generative AI and South Africa’s Future
South Africa stands at a crossroads. Our nation carries the weight of deep inequality, unemployment rates above 30%, and a generation of young people whose futures feel deferred. Into this context enters generative AI — a technology many celebrate for its efficiency, but one that also sparks fear: Will it take our jobs? Will it widen inequality?
By David Thusi5 months ago in Writers
God of the Conqueror: How Religion Was Weaponized Against the Colonized
The history of empire is not just a story of land and gold. It is also a story of God. From the Spanish missions of Latin America to the Anglican schools of Southern Africa, religious institutions were often the first tools of empire. Churches arrived before flags. Bibles before bullets. Priests before governors. And with them came the most dangerous lie ever sold: that submission to foreign rule was not only political, but divine.
By David Thusi6 months ago in Critique
History, Identity, and Power: Who Gets to Write the Truth?
History is not merely a record of what happened. It is a powerful tool, shaped by those who write it, often reflecting the agendas, traumas, and aspirations of nations. In our post-colonial world, history is contested terrain. Nowhere is this more evident than in the ongoing debate over the origins of the Jewish people, the identity of modern Israelis, and the broader question of who has the right to claim historical legitimacy.
By David Thusi7 months ago in Critique
What Comes After Exposure? Reclaiming Memory and Repair
It starts with a spark—a documentary, a conversation, a sudden reckoning. Maybe someone posts about stolen African artifacts sitting in European museums, or you read that the wealth of a global power was built on slave labor. At first, it feels like outrage. But soon, a deeper question emerges:
By David Thusi7 months ago in Critique
Europe’s Amnesia: How the West Remembers What It Wants, and Forgets What It Must
Europe has mastered the art of remembrance — just not for everyone. Across cities like Berlin, Paris, and Amsterdam, you’ll find meticulously maintained Holocaust memorials, plaques marking Nazi crimes, and museums dedicated to "Never Again." And rightly so. The horrors of fascism deserve eternal remembrance.
By David Thusi7 months ago in Critique
The Invention of Whiteness: How Race Was Manufactured to Divide and Rule
When we talk about race, it often feels like we’re speaking about something ancient and immutable. But the truth is more unsettling: race, especially the category of “whiteness,” is a modern invention — designed not by biology, but by power.
By David Thusi7 months ago in Critique
Buried Brilliance: How Global Knowledge Was Erased to Elevate the West
When we’re taught the origins of science, mathematics, and philosophy, the names sound familiar — Aristotle, Newton, Galileo, Descartes. European. Male. Genius. But what if I told you that this “lineage of brilliance” is not just incomplete — it’s a deliberate fiction?
By David Thusi7 months ago in Critique
Truth, Theft, and the Courage to Remember: Reclaiming Our Stolen Histories
History, we are told, is about facts. Dates. Kings. Wars. Inventions. But the question I keep returning to is: Whose facts? Whose kings? Whose inventions? I didn’t grow up asking that question. I accepted the timeline I was taught — the one that began in Ancient Greece, skipped to Rome, fast-forwarded to the Enlightenment, then marched triumphantly into the Industrial Revolution. I was told this was progress. That this was civilization. But something always felt off.
By David Thusi8 months ago in Critique
Manufacturing a Myth: Why There Is No White Genocide in South Africa
South Africa is not at war with its white citizens. But if you were to scroll through certain corners of the internet—or listen to foreign political debates in places like the United States—you might be convinced otherwise. Claims that white Afrikaner farmers are being “exterminated” in a so-called genocide have gained traction in right-wing media, drawing attention from figures like Donald Trump and Elon Musk. But these claims are not only misleading—they are dangerous. They manipulate pain, obscure real challenges, and weaponize race in ways that deepen global divisions. As a South African who has walked through rural villages and urban centers, spoken to farm workers and farm owners, stood in township queues and corporate foyers—I can tell you firsthand: this narrative is not just false. It’s a distraction from the real work we need to do.
By David Thusi8 months ago in History
Stolen Identity: How Europe Built Itself by Erasing Others
I used to look at Europe and admire its order. The marble streets. The paintings. The architecture. The libraries with their golden shelves. And then I began to ask: Where did all of this come from? Not just physically — but morally, historically, and spiritually. And the answer, if we’re honest, is this: Europe’s identity was built on theft.
By David Thusi8 months ago in Critique
