How Can We Purify Our Memory

by Sarah-Leah Pimentel · April 27, 2015

Lately South Africans from all camps have been caught up in the raging debate of whether the symbols of a bygone age can coexist with the values we espouse today.

The faces of subjects on paintings in the University of Cape Town�s Jameson Hall are covered up during a protest against colonial symbols. (Photo:?G�nther Simmermacher)

It all started with the Rhodes memorial at the University of Cape Town. Since then a South African war memorial in Uitenhage has been necklaced and on Easter weekend, a 1905 memorial dedicated to horses was vandalised, where the horse was left standing, but the soldier watering the horse was toppled.

The Economic Freedom Fighters party has said that �economic liberation must be accompanied by the falling of these colonial statues and we would want to see them replaced by liberation hero statues.�

I don�t think that anyone denies the need for memorials dedicated to both the famous and unsung heroes who contributed to the freedom struggle, from Madiba to the children running with the dead Hector Peterson in their arms on June 16, 1976, and the many more who died in prison cells, in exile, as well as those who returned home and led us all to the polls for the first time on April 27, 1994, the 21st anniversary of which we celebrate this week.

But is there a place for these so-called �colonial statues�?

I�ve had interesting conversations with friends in the last month. I initially argued that by toppling these statues, we risk obliterating a part of our history and corrupting our memory. If our history does not stand as a lesson to us, we are in danger of one day repeating the intolerance and injustice of our forefathers.

Speaking about the now removed Rhodes statue, one of my friends argued that a university coud not speak about transformation if it honoured the memory of a man who amassed a fortune by exploiting black labour, adding that the statue is an insult to black students at the university.

I understand and respect that position. Nevertheless, I felt that both of our arguments was missing something vital. Until I happened upon a Catholic text entitled �Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past�, written by the International Theological Commission that met in Rome in 1998-99 ahead of the Jubilee in 2000 (read it at www.bit.ly/1Dj2cqP).

In the document pronouncing the Jubilee year, Incarnationis Mysterium,� Pope John Paul II wrote that �the Church should kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters�.

A question in this text caught my attention and reminded me of the conversation with my friend: �Isn�t it a bit too easy to judge people of the past by the conscience of today?�

There is no way we can compare the morality and values we hold sacred today to those of 1900 South Africa in the throes of a war with parts of itself, or even the South Africa of 1960 that claimed independence from the British.

If anything, those statues show us how far we have come. Today that we have a constitution that proclaims we are all equal before the law and have right to equal opportunities irrespective of our race or creed.

And despite the most progressive of constitutions, we are still learning how to apply that in practice in our daily relationships, in our workplaces, in our education system, in every aspect of our common life as South Africans. With varying levels of success and transformation. But we are trying. This is something to celebrate.

However, it is also important to recognise that reconciliation is a process that takes time. The Theological Commission stated that part of that process � within the context of the Church�s own faults and failings over the centuries � is that the �recognition of the past faults of the Church�s sons and daughters of yesterday can foster renewal and reconciliation in the present�.

Similarly, as South Africans we need to recognise our former narrow understanding of who comprised the beneficiaries of our nation�s wealth and reject any official and unofficial policies that promote racism, exclude the poor, or resist transformation.

As Christians, we should be leading this kind of transformation. We have had more than enough practice in our 2000 years of lived experience.

In two millennia of history, we have taken the Good News to every corner of the earth, but several times since Vatican II, the Church has asked forgiveness for ��methods of violence and intolerance� used in the past to evangelise;� these �scandals of the past� that still stand as an obstacle to the Church�s witness today. This is what the Theological Commission describes as a �purification of memory�.

My friend was right when she spoke about the need to retell our history in a way that reveals both the faults and triumphs of all our national icons, including those that have fallen out of favour. In doing so, we purify our collective memory, while also �seeking at the same time a dialogue in mutual understanding with those who may feel themselves still wounded by past acts� of which we are the heirs, whether we like it or not.

The students of UCT and the EFF have started a necessary dialogue which allows us the opportunity to purify our memories. But in so doing, we must refrain from the kind of hysteria that has the potential to destroy both the dialogue and the bronzed icons.

The inscription on the 1905 Horse Memorial in Port Elizabeth reads: �The greatness of a nation consists not so much upon the number of its people or the extent of its territory, as in the extent and justice of its compassion.�

May compassion be the balm that helps us to purify our historical memory so that our past, present and future can be cleansed through Christ, who each day calls us to look at his crucified and resurrected Body and �do this in memory of me.�

To read the Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past: http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20000307_memory-reconc-itc_en.html