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Authors: Alexander McCall Smith
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than the circumstances should warrant. At the end of the day, nothing is likely to be achieved and one is left wondering whether there is not a case for allowing the past to be buried with decency.
Let the past alone
is sometimes the best advice that can be given.”
Mma Ramotswe had reread this passage several times and had found herself agreeing with the sentiments it expressed. There was far too much interest in the past, she thought. People were forever digging up events that had taken place a long time ago. And what was the point in doing this if the effect was merely to poison the present? There were many wrongs in the past, but did it help to keep bringing them up and giving them a fresh airing? She thought of the Shona people and how they kept going on about what the Ndebele did to them under Mzilikazi and Lobengula. It is true that they did terrible things—after all, they were really Zulus and had always oppressed their neighbours—but surely that was no justification for continuing to talk about it. It would be better to forget all that once and for all.
She thought of Seretse Khama, Paramount Chief of the Bamgwato, First President of Botswana, Statesman. Look at the way the British had treated him, refusing to recognize his choice of bride and forcing him into exile simply because he had married an Englishwoman. How could they have done such an insensitive and cruel thing to a man like that? To send a man away from his land, from his people, was surely one of the cruellest punishments that could he devised. And it left the people leaderless; it cut at their very soul:
Where is our Khama? Where is the son of Kgosi Sekgoma II and the mohumagadi Tebogo?
But Seretse himself never made much of this later on. He did not talk about it and he was never anything but courteous to the British Government and to the Queen herself. A lesser man would have said: Look what you did to me, and now you expect me to be your friend!
Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years of his life simply because he wanted justice. They had set him to work in a quarry and his eyes had been permanently damaged by the rock dust. But at last, when he had walked out of the prison on that breathless, luminous day, he had said nothing about revenge or even retribution. He had said that there were more important things to do than to complain about the past, and in time he had shown that he meant this by hundreds of acts of kindness towards those who had treated him so badly. That was the real African way, the tradition that was closest to the heart of Africa. We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human.
She appreciated that, and she understood the greatness that Khama and Mandela showed in forgiving the past. And yet, Mrs Curtin’s case was different. It did not seem to her that the American woman was keen to find somebody to blame for her son’s disappearance, although she knew that there were many people in such circumstances who became obsessed with finding somebody to punish. And, of course, there was the whole problem of punishment. Mma Ramotswe sighed. She supposed that punishment was sometimes needed to make it clear that what somebody had done was wrong, but she had never been able to understand why we should wish to punish those who repented for their misdeeds. When she was a girl in Mochudi, she had seen a boy beaten for losing a goat. He had confessed that he had gone to sleep under a tree when he should have been watching the herd, and he had said that he was truly sorry that he had allowed the goat to wander. What was the point, she wondered, in his uncle beating him with a mopani stick until he cried out for mercy? Such punishment achieved nothing and merely disfigured the person who exacted
Let the past alone
is sometimes the best advice that can be given.”
Mma Ramotswe had reread this passage several times and had found herself agreeing with the sentiments it expressed. There was far too much interest in the past, she thought. People were forever digging up events that had taken place a long time ago. And what was the point in doing this if the effect was merely to poison the present? There were many wrongs in the past, but did it help to keep bringing them up and giving them a fresh airing? She thought of the Shona people and how they kept going on about what the Ndebele did to them under Mzilikazi and Lobengula. It is true that they did terrible things—after all, they were really Zulus and had always oppressed their neighbours—but surely that was no justification for continuing to talk about it. It would be better to forget all that once and for all.
She thought of Seretse Khama, Paramount Chief of the Bamgwato, First President of Botswana, Statesman. Look at the way the British had treated him, refusing to recognize his choice of bride and forcing him into exile simply because he had married an Englishwoman. How could they have done such an insensitive and cruel thing to a man like that? To send a man away from his land, from his people, was surely one of the cruellest punishments that could he devised. And it left the people leaderless; it cut at their very soul:
Where is our Khama? Where is the son of Kgosi Sekgoma II and the mohumagadi Tebogo?
But Seretse himself never made much of this later on. He did not talk about it and he was never anything but courteous to the British Government and to the Queen herself. A lesser man would have said: Look what you did to me, and now you expect me to be your friend!
Then there was Mr Mandela. Everybody knew about Mr Mandela and how he had forgiven those who had imprisoned him. They had taken away years and years of his life simply because he wanted justice. They had set him to work in a quarry and his eyes had been permanently damaged by the rock dust. But at last, when he had walked out of the prison on that breathless, luminous day, he had said nothing about revenge or even retribution. He had said that there were more important things to do than to complain about the past, and in time he had shown that he meant this by hundreds of acts of kindness towards those who had treated him so badly. That was the real African way, the tradition that was closest to the heart of Africa. We are all children of Africa, and none of us is better or more important than the other. This is what Africa could say to the world: it could remind it what it is to be human.
She appreciated that, and she understood the greatness that Khama and Mandela showed in forgiving the past. And yet, Mrs Curtin’s case was different. It did not seem to her that the American woman was keen to find somebody to blame for her son’s disappearance, although she knew that there were many people in such circumstances who became obsessed with finding somebody to punish. And, of course, there was the whole problem of punishment. Mma Ramotswe sighed. She supposed that punishment was sometimes needed to make it clear that what somebody had done was wrong, but she had never been able to understand why we should wish to punish those who repented for their misdeeds. When she was a girl in Mochudi, she had seen a boy beaten for losing a goat. He had confessed that he had gone to sleep under a tree when he should have been watching the herd, and he had said that he was truly sorry that he had allowed the goat to wander. What was the point, she wondered, in his uncle beating him with a mopani stick until he cried out for mercy? Such punishment achieved nothing and merely disfigured the person who exacted
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