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Dear Sir,

I read the article by your Columnist Tom Vesey (February 13) and thought " I must be getting soft!"  

I approve of, or agree with, enough of Mr. Vesey's articles that when I do not, I pay attention anyway.

One thing is very clear, I spoke the truth when I said that the Governor's remarks had the potential for many interpretations. Let me share my own thoughts. When the Governor reminded us that the ANC (under Mandela?) did not remove the Boer's statue I was very impressed because many years ago I joined the Bermuda Historical Society (at the time most of the participants were white).  

But I left after a very short period because everything reminded me of how totally blacks had been so effectively excluded from everything in society. Mandela and other black South Africans had suffered far more than I had at the hands of those who believed in white supremacy.

Black South Africans did not remove that symbol but they did what the PLP is attempting to do, that is, they added their own symbol. So when the thoughts of your columnist were directed towards the symbols themselves, I  was thinking about the attitude of those who had every right  to erase the symbol and the terrible memories which they carried but they chose not to do so.

Right or wrong, their  approach was very different from mine when I decided to leave the Bermuda Historical Society because I did not want to be reminded of the humiliation that I and other black people had had inflicted on us by our apartheid Government. They recognized that history cannot be erased, no matter how painful the memories and no matter how often we are told to "forget the Past and move on."

Eva N. Hodgson

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