Dealing with the past

Sandy Grant | Friday April 10, 2015 09:40

In recent years we have seen, around the world, any number of statues toppled - of Saddam Hussein, of Lenin and Stalin -  as there are major shifts in the political scene.  Statues of military heroes, invariably on horseback, and political leaders with arm upraised to embrace the masses, are easily toppled.

They, however, are merely the symbols, appreciated yesterday, deplored today.  Which is well understood. There is no need for anyone anywhere in the world to deliberately seek to retain every facet of an unwelcome past. 

There is a need however to achieve balance, difficult as this may be. The entire past cannot be removed. The memory, the archival record, the inherited beliefs and traditions stemming from the past, cannot be obliterated.

We all need to know and understand what we can about our historical origins. The destruction by IS of the 3,000 year old site of the Assyrian city of Nimrud in Iraq was done to destroy anything non-Islamic.  But whilst the physical remains of incredibly ancient sites or, indeed, of very modem statues, can be blown up or taken down, the historical record will always remain. Every country in the world has aspects of its past, which retrospectively it may today regret. But whilst it may wish to eliminate the historical record, it cannot alter what historically happened and what it historically did.

I much doubt that Berliners would feel comfortable with a statue of Hitler in their midst  - and his presence there would undoubtedly cause major popular discomfort.

So let the statue of Rhodes go. But how much further should this new ideal be pushed? Rename Rhodes University in South Africa, convince Oxford University in England to dump its Rhodes scholarship awards - and seek to embarrass the many major world figures who have benefited from it, dig up the railway line from Cape Town to Bulawayo and onwards to Livingstone?

Blow up the extraordinary Victoria Falls Bridge;  and so on?

Destroying the easily accessible, and economically unimportant evidence of the past is easily accomplished. It becomes so much more difficult, however, to remove aspects of the past when a push for action and change means a loss of income.

At some stage, therefore outrage will confront reality and compromise is inevitable. This country, however, is fortunate because it has a long tradition of preferring the middle way which will mean that whilst it may deplore the man it is still able to recognise that his railway left a legacy here of incalculable benefit to the country.  Had that line not been built, we might today, be struggling to decide if a new north-south line is as much a priority as lines to both the west and east, and how any of them might be financed?