Put the past in its place

THE debate around Helen Zille’s tweets and the response to them requires comment.

I speak from outside the country, which is easier than speaking from within, if only because political correctness has long since compromised honest debate.

Zille’s tweets alone do not tell us whether she supports or abhors colonialism.

To conclude either way is to make an unwarranted inference, but let’s put this aside for a moment.

When Margaret Thatcher visited the People’s Republic of China in 1985, the Chinese president made the point that “the British occupation awakened China from its immemorial slumber”.

When then Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh received an honorary doctorate from Oxford on July 8 2005, he referred to the negative consequences but also the “beneficial consequences” of the 200-year long British occupation.

Were these leaders defending the colonial occupation of their own countries? Of course not.

One has to say that they showed remarkable self-assurance.

While the past cannot be forgotten, it can be digested and quietly be put in its place. There is always a choice to be made. The choice here is between seeing yourself as a perpetual victim or taking control of your own destiny.

India, a rising world power, has shown genius in incorporating into its heritage all parts of its past, including its colonial past.

The leadership of South Africa has failed its people in more ways than one.

To appeal to emotion and hurt may foster solidarity, but it does nothing to move the country forward and as everyone knows, if you don’t move forward, you get left behind.

Chuck Volpe, Australia