Real history sux. The one thing is, no matter how you color it, it is just history. It doesn’t change. You can change the spin, look from a different perspective, but it doesn’t change.
Recently a huge mass grave was discovered in Canada, filled with the remains of First Nations children that had been taken from their homes. It wasn’t the first, I doubt it will be the last.
History shows there were at least 311 “massacres” in Australia and New Zealand between 1780 and 1930. Literally millions of deaths, black and white, were recorded over the last 240 years in Africa. That doesn’t even count the inter-“tribal” battles.
Hundreds of child graves have been found in Ireland, at Irish “Homes For Unwed Mothers”. We’ve not even touched upon the Soviets, Chinese, Laos, Viet Nam, Turkey, Central European, the Ottoman Empire or South American incidents and unfound graveyards.
Nor have we touched on all the deaths in “the name of God”, whatever name given. Real history is ugly, but we can learn from it.
No race, religion, or tribe is free from stain. But it is wrong to demand “reparations” from this group or that group because of what happened in the past. Reparation payments is not learning, it is punishment for something we had no control over.
History can teach. It is up to each of us to control our own history and what it teaches those that follow.
Printed Honolulu Star Advertiser June 10, 2021
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