Destroying a statue does not remove history, the same way as changing a street name, a town or city’s name will never change the animosity a black man carries in his heart.
The problem with South Africa is that we are trying extra hard to remove the ‘legacy’ of apartheid without paying too much attention in building the legacy of a new South Africa. We treat racial division as our main problem, while oblivious to the fact that our lack of vision is the reason we keep jumping back into the same hole we climbed out of 21 years ago.
South Africa’s problem is not race, it is unforgiveness and the inability to open our eyes to a brighter future, and hence we keep hearing annoying shouts of ‘Rhodes must fall’ and appalling behaviour of defacing the face of our history.
Also Read: A black man’s animosity threatens SA
Think about it this way, imagine we were to erase every hint of apartheid by replacing street names, removing statues of men who helped shape the victories we have overcome, and in the case of Cecil John Rhodes, whose legacy includes bursaries which have helped many young people attain a quality education; at the end of this all we’d be left with nothing but shame.
Not only that, if we are to claim victory over oppression, we would have nothing to show for it. Yes, we would have the names of freedom fighters who our children will have no idea who led South Africa before them.
Apartheid may have not been good, black people may have been oppressed by the then government; however, we cannot deny some of the good that came out of the apartheid era. Today I can communicate in English, Afrikaans and Sepedi because of the education I received at school; I have learned about the Zulu, Bapedi, Batswana and Afrikaner ‘kingdoms’ because of the same apartheid government we hate so much.
To take this even further, many of our parents were able to provide us with an opportunity to study at the best schools, even though their salaries were not necessarily sufficient to cover the costs; they were able to do this because of the systems in place during the apartheid era.
Also Read: Don’t ‘black-out’ the future of SA
The reality is that the history of both white and black South Africans is our history, it reminds us of our struggles, victories and the injustices we had to let go of. South Africa’s freedom in 1994 was not only for the previously disadvantaged, it was for every South African to start enjoying the full potential of democracy and equality.
The victory over the apartheid rule was not only for black people, but for everyone. Come to think of it, we were all oppressed as South Africans, because we were trapped in the web of hatred and blinded by prejudice and animosity. Today we have an option; to continue trying to jump back into the hole we spent years climbing out of or reaching high for new possibilities.
We have an opportunity to create new memories. Let us not waste time trying to address racism instead of spending time working on embracing our diversity. We need to remember that the best way to redress the effects of apartheid is by addressing our ambitions as a new and unified South Africa.
Let us all live and strive for the freedom we deserve in South Africa our beautiful land, Nkosi Sikelela iAfrica!
