We must not erase our past, however ugly it is

I NEVER know what to make of historical revisionism.

Should we ignore unpleasant aspects of our history while simultaneously elevating the good?

If we impose a national amnesia and remove all vestiges of our past, how do we record how we arrived at the present?

For example, would we have a context to the euphoria of democracy in 1994 and our constitution that came from that event?

If we delete sections of our past, the present becomes meaningless because it follows an historical vacuum, a lacuna, like a book with missing pages.

How do we celebrate Freedom Day on April 27 if we can’t explain why we celebrate it? Perhaps logical argument is insufficient here. Many of us are still mired in the unpleasantness of the past.

We cannot move on, so we blame Jan van Riebeeck – who, rightly or wrongly, is blamed for everything – the nationalists, apartheid or Cecil John Rhodes.

However, I believe the fault is not the past per se but our unwillingness to accept responsibility for our own mistakes, decisions and development now and into the future.

Without the “apartheid” and “colonial” crutch we don’t know how to explain and justify our actions and the consequences that follow.

We are not unique in the world grappling with a traumatic history.

Memorials all over the world of momentous events and notable historical figures serve as a record and reminder of history, and perhaps as a warning.

Revisionists are hypocritical and dishonest because they want to remove from memory signs of the past while continuously living in it and badgering everyone not to forget. How do they explain and live with this paradox?

Revisionists like faeces thrower – we should stop minimising this uncivilised act by referring to it by its diminutive, “poo” – Chumani Maxwele (pictured) and his apologist M Pickstone-Taylor (“Rhodes’s dubious ethics”, Cape Argus, March 12) are such people.

I can’t follow Pickstone-Taylor’s argument visa-vis Rhodes and the morality and ethics of throwing disease and bacteria-laden shit by a mature student in a public place. Did Maxwele engage in performance art? If so, then it’s freedom of expression, although an indecent form and UCT should show understanding.

If it was political protest, the courts recently punished similar protests. So should UCT.

What UCT should not do is encourage such infantile, uncivilised actions – by a very privileged person I might add – by treating it as less than it deserves.

If Maxwele understands history, he should accept the principle of cause and effect, which will hopefully see him suspended from the university body for vandalism and more seriously causing a public health risk.

Maxwele should be thankful that he does not live in that other former British colony Singapore, which recently pursued two young Germans to Malaysia for spray-painting graffiti on a train carriage.

Clearly not all former colonial countries are hamstrung by immaturity and the past. THOMAS JOHNSON Lansdowne BRAVO to M Pickstone-Taylor for his “from the heart”, clear minded, candid and thought-provoking exposé of the “poo incident” and the vagabond colonialist Cecil John Rhodes.

I am often in trouble with my co-religionists for saying that I feel closer to justice-seeking, humanist and morally upright non-Muslims including agnostics and atheists, whom I will term as my brothers in humanity, than “co-religionists” with Muslim or Arabic names who know nothing but wanton killing and destruction without just cause.

I may not agree with overlooking the actions of Chumani Maxwele so casually, but a strong point is made for caution against an equally rash reaction.

My curiosity is piqued by how M Pickstone-Taylor would describe his overview of the Palestinian/Israeli issue and I am hopeful that he will honour these pages with a response. ABE PARKER Surrey Estate