Time for SA to embark on the pilgrimage of healing

By better appreciating Africa’s glorious past, we can cultivate the empathy our nation needs, writes Mamphela Ramphele

South Africa is paying a heavy price for neglecting the teaching of history as a transformative project. It is time we told our own story as a people.

We need to tell the stories of Great Zimbabwe and the Mapungubwe golden rhino to challenge narratives that negate our precolonial role as not only the cradle of humanity, but the pioneer of science, technology and philosophy now ascribed to "Western civilisation".

We will do well to remember the words of the great scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, that the negation of the history and intellectual accomplishments of black Africans was the cultural and mental murder which preceded their genocide.

The Mapungubwe golden rhino had to be hidden from the public from the 1930s as toxic knowledge. It challenged the notion of a savage people with no scientific and technical skills to mine, refine and shape minerals into objects of beauty or utility. This precious find was revealed only towards the end of the colonial/apartheid era.

The quality of teaching of history in our schools undermines the ideals of building the united, nonracial, nonsexist and just society we committed ourselves to at the dawn of our democracy.

In most of our schools, public and private, history is still taught as starting with the arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, perpetuating the myth that Africa is a continent without history. We deny young people their proud history as the only sure and trusted cultural weapon to defend themselves against racist and colonial apologists.

More than two decades of constitutional democracy have not enabled the development of empathy essential to heal the wounds of divisions of our ugly past. Empathy is inherent in human beings and promotes the wellbeing of communities. The African wisdom of ubuntu captures it well - I am because you are. Communities where each member feels the pain of others and works to create a society where injustices and indignities are banished become founts of wellbeing for all.

Our society stands in stark contrast to an empathetic one. Ours is highly traumatised by the legacy of colonial conquest and its apartheid aftermath. The so-called benefits of colonial conquest are real for those enjoying the legacy of multigenerational privileges.

Apologists for the legacy of colonialism are not only displaying racist prejudices, but also ignorance of Africa's rich legacy as the pioneer of science, technology and philosophy. But this is largely cultivated ignorance to justify holding onto their superiority complexes.

For those who would like to free themselves from this shocking level of ignorance, Diop's book Civilization or Barbarism is highly recommended. It is a detailed record of Africa's proud contributions to global knowledge.

Our education system needs to ensure that young people use Diop and other African historians to learn more about ancient Africa so that they can defend themselves against racists and chauvinists perpetrating colonial myths.

To add insult to injury, defenders of colonial myths accuse critics of their narratives of lack of understanding of English and of the capacity to think logically and rationally.

But above all, you cannot dictate to me how to respond to the pain you have inflicted, and continue to inflict, on me. If I tell you it hurts, you'd better believe it.

We have an opportunity to turn this low point in our human community into a base for conversations about the deep-seated wounds in our society from our ugly past. That past will not pass until we acknowledge it in the fullness of its imprint on us. Our past has branded us as either inferior or superior along the fault lines of our colour-coded society.

Unattended wounds fester into violence against the self, those close to us (domestic violence) and wider public violence at work and at play. We are a brutally violent society. We need to confront this violence as an indicator of our failure to acknowledge and deal with the ugliness of our past.

We have in the past, against all odds, demonstrated our capacity to heal ourselves.

We need look no further than the preamble to our constitution for guidance. We need to heal the divisions of our ugly past.

We need a new consciousness of ourselves with a primary identity of being citizens of this beautiful country. Our country is endowed enough to overflow with abundance for all if we were to heal ourselves into a new South Africanism.

This requires the humility to subject ourselves to a pilgrimage of healing to purge ourselves of superiority and inferiority complexes.

It is only then that we can become the inclusive, prosperous, nonracial democracy we promised ourselves at the dawn of our freedom in 1994.

• Ramphele is co-founder of ReimagineSA