Does History Count?
By Catherine
@bluesa (15023)
Johannesburg, South Africa
August 7, 2017 9:18am CST
Does history count, when one really thinks about it? I was talking to a fellow mylotter @moffittjc about the fact that South Africa was once a Dutch Colony and a British Colony. With all this there are Afrikaans speaking people and English speaking people. Okay, we have 11 official languages in South Africa but for this discussion I am focusing on the the Afrikaans and English and the fact there was the Anglo-Boer War.
My Moms Grandmother (my great grandmother) on her Dads side, was in a British concentration camp during the Anglo-Boer War and so having survived that, she refused to speak a word of English. That is how anti-English she was. Well, my cousin and her husband moved to England a few years back and this year their eldest daughter married an Englishman.
Can you imagine what my great grandmother would think about that? If someone had told her that one day in the future, the child of a great grandchild would marry someone she would consider an enemy. What did history count in that?
However, to this day, there are still those Afrikaans people who will not speak English, they understand English but will answer in Afrikaans. And there are those English who will not speak Afrikaans, they understand Afrikaans but will answer in English. I am always amazed at those conversations. So, there history still counts.
I guess what it boils down to is how stubborn one wants to be about history, that there are those that accept it is in the past and those that cling to it. Do you agree? I am quite neutral about it. I speak Afrikaans and English. Does history count in your family? I think the decades roll on and things fade, not always good or fair but that seems how it goes.
Image: Pixabay
9 people like this
11 responses
@MarymargII (12422)
• Toronto, Ontario
7 Aug 17
I think people hold onto it too much if it creates a wall and they become stubborn. Better to forget anything bad and look toward the future.
2 people like this
@MarymargII (12422)
• Toronto, Ontario
7 Aug 17
@bluesa True- it's better if we just carry on and live and let live.
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@TiarasOceanView (70035)
• United States
7 Aug 17
Yes history counts to me anyway.
I am steeped in it and love to learn of it.
We cannot go forward in future without looking at the past
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@jobelbojel (34729)
• Philippines
8 Aug 17
History counts indeed. We can learn great lessons from it. And most of the time I get an "Uh-huh" moment when I learn about the history of one place or race or event. Like the Philippines, we were colonized by the Spanish, Americans and Japanese. We can speak English because it is already in the system. We know Spanish - in Zamboanga, people speak Chavacano - a Spanish-based creole language.
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@jobelbojel (34729)
• Philippines
8 Aug 17
@bluesa Yes, you got it! My previous co-workers were from the Zamboanga province. They were hired because we have Spanish-speaking customers. They became the frontliners.
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@bluesa (15023)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
8 Aug 17
@jobelbojel and so history influences their lives today :)
@bluesa (15023)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
8 Aug 17
@jobelbojel , yes, we can learn from it. And it does bring certain things into perspective. The Afrikaans I speak of has Dutch, Portuguese and even a bit of French words in it. That is how history influenced our cultures. :)
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@moffittjc (118368)
• Gainesville, Florida
12 Aug 17
If you look at many of the conflicts taking place across the world today, much of it is the result of people, nations and cultures holding onto past history. Somewhere in history, somebody was wronged, and modern descendants refuse to let it go. To survive and thrive in the modern world, we need to learn to let go of some things from the past. Our world is truly a global world now, and everything we do is connected to somewhere else in the world, whether we like it or not, and whether we are friends or enemies.
The United States fought a war in Vietnam, who for decades was our enemy. However, you wouldn't believe how many clothes we wear on our backs now are made in Vietnam, and how thriving their tourist industry is now from many Americans and other westerners traveling there.
I know division and strife run deep in many cultures. But at some point leaders need to step up and say, it's time to move on. It's time to bury the hatchet and make peace with our former enemies. We can't change the past, but we can sure change the future!
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@bluesa (15023)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
12 Aug 17
Hi, Jeff. Yes, the world has become a smaller place, for sure. And many changes have taken place over the years. It seems that some just can't let go of the past, though I think there are more that have moved on from it.
I agree, the future is what needs to be focused on, worked on. And I hope ways can be found to make the future peaceful.
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@bluesa (15023)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
13 Aug 17
@moffittjc I think so too. And I hope things will be able to be resolved peacefully.
I am okay, thanks, I finally got some sleep, so yay that. It's already Sunday night, the weekend is gone and between chores and errands I found some time to sit in the garden and read a bit, and that was nice. How was your weekend?
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@moffittjc (118368)
• Gainesville, Florida
12 Aug 17
@bluesa I think the problem we're going to face in the future is overpopulation and fighting for scarce resources like fresh water and food. I hope we all learn to work together to find solutions to our dwindling resources instead of fighting each other for control of them.
How are you today? Any big plans for the weekend?
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@dgobucks226 (34317)
•
11 Aug 17
An interesting premise! I think history always counts in family and society. In my family, my Mom's side of the family is from the South. So, since my Dad's father settled in New Jersey, when we visited our southern cousins we were called Yankees, a Civil War term for Northerners. The Civil War being such a divisive event in our history those divisions persisted way beyond the end of the Civil War. Of course, they were only kidding (I think). Not the same as your great grandmother's refusal to speak the language. But as in both our cases, time moves forward and history becomes the past and attitudes change.
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@bluesa (15023)
• Johannesburg, South Africa
11 Aug 17
Yes, DB, I remember watching the tv series North and South, I think was its name, about the civil war. But you have summed up well when you say "time moves forward and history becomes the past and attitudes change." That is exactly it.
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@dgobucks226 (34317)
•
11 Aug 17
@bluesa Why thank you! How sweet of you to put it that way. P.S. Yes the Civil War. I visited many of their sites especially in Virginia. Very interesting and educational if you take the guided tours!!!
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@mrumairsss (22)
• Multan, Pakistan
9 Aug 17
YES HISTORY HAS GREAT IMPRESSIONS FOR OUR TODAY LIFE MEANS THE HISTORY ITSELF IS VERY HELPFUL FOR IDENTIFYING THE NATURE AND BEHAVIOUS WITH OTHERS
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@Hannihar (129379)
• Israel
2 Nov 17
I can see your great grandmother rolling over in her grave. There are those that like to stick with their old traditions and ways and refuse the new ones. Since I do not know much about my family's history until a facebook friend of me helped me find information I found it very fascinating to find out about them. I still do not know if some of my families family perished in the Russian progroms. To me history is very important. I live in Israel because being Jewish is very important to me and our history is here and to me it is a very beautiful one at that. They discover things that prove we were here thousands of years.
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