Why the silence?

(From Business Day (South Africa))

Byline: Crispin Hemson

Why the silence? I am involved in a modest project to rewrite the history of the struggle in the Durban area, to bring into even sharper focus my central role as liberator, hoping that a suburb, stadium, arterial road or even golf estate will be named after me. The present rush to celebrate leaders of the past is striking, and I have been quick to respond to its challenges.

But why the increasing emphasis on the years of the struggle? Could it possibly be that we can't find heroic leadership in the present, in sharp contrast to the past, when people would die for a moral principle? So much of …