the activists were wackos; it was their own fault for not making their case well enough within the system

I love to have people get informed about South African history for that.

There was a huge opposition to imperialism, colonialism and what would become to be apartheid by educated BIPoCs from Southern Africa (Namibia, South Africa etc.). They used the moral idealist arguments, used arguments of religious and political ideas of the time - and they were basically completely ignored in the core, even if they were in the core.

How many generations of such moralizing arguments do you need to do while genocide rages on against your people? Only did things change to a significant degree when the tools of oppression - the idea of enlightenment - was cast aside and other themes became more powerful. That did include militant action where it was useful and non violent mass action against colonialist systems of power. They weren’t done on their own but within the contrast of what else could be done and was done in smaller actions.

As we all know South Africa wasn’t freed from Apartheid by the argument that “all men are created equal”. What we also know is that the IMF and restructuring of the system after the transition from Apartheid to modern “Social Democracy” with Neoliberal elements, did not create a free world, but one in which the power of capitalists, land owners and those that were economic powerful before from within the country and from outside the country was enshrined into the law and thus the institutions which do currently project power in the country.

So I agree completely with you and can only applaud the schooling systems of the world which do their utmost to keep people in states of false consciousness.