Motlanthe calls for inclusive history to avoid old mistakes

Credit: African National Congress

Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe has called on South Africans not to ignore the country’s painful history by focusing on “feel-good” moments and falling for “temptations to wipe the slate clean”.

Motlanthe, during a debate in the National Assembly to commemorate the formation of the Union of South Africa on May 31 100 years ago, said there was a need for an “all-inclusive process” to allow all communities and social groups to talk about what the “odious acts” of the past meant.

“In embracing the past, especially its negative and unappealing aspects such as those resulting from land dispossession, we do not by any stretch of the imagination intend to rub that in among certain sections of our population,” he said.

“What we need is an all-inclusive process that involves the participation of all communities and social groups in determining our collective history and share destiny (to say) this is what happens if we remain silent about our history and select instead on focusing on episodes favourable to our purposes.”

“If we are to address the challenges besetting us in contemporary SA, challenges of poverty and inequality, social cohesion and the use of racism and sexism, we can only do so guided by a clearer comprehension of this collective past of which none of us can escape.”

Motlanthe also made an appeal to public representatives to engage in and relay their history ‘in its entirety” and to be open about the “odious acts of the past” to prevent them from recurring.

He said South Africans now had the “collevctive maturity to deal with the implcations of the hundred-year history’s “inconvenient truths”.

“A task before us, irrespective of where in the political spectrum we reside, is one desiring us to enage with this history comprehensively and objectively. We have to deal with this history in its entirety and embrace it for what it is.Failing whihc, history will become subjective and reflective of the interests of and viewpoints of the victor.”

Christelle Terreblanche, Cape Times, 2 June 2010

Abbreviated versions of this item were also published in the Sunday Tribune and the Pretoria News

Leave a comment