I AM HAPPY I WAS WRONG
Recently I made in a letter to the editor of the Lethbridge Herald, two predictions, and I was wrong on both accounts. And this manifestation of my fallibility makes me happy.
I thought that Pope Francis could not do all that much to change the Catholic Church, because of the power of Curia (Vatican bureaucracy). Boy, was I wrong! He is changing the agenda of the church. I also predicted that the public would forget the Senate spending scandals by this time. I was wrong there too. It is still a big news in the media. I hope that the public is following the story and continued to complain about the sorry state of the Senate, and the lack of transparency on the part of Prime Minister. It seems prorogation is not changing the situation. The supporters of the Mr. Harper must urge him to come clean fast and cut the loss.
I was wrong many times in my life.
When I was kicked out of South Africa in 1971, I never thought that the Black rule would ever come to Southern Africa in my life-time. The Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Ian Smith, said, “Majority rule will never come in my life time.” I had agreed. Then “puff!” Robert Mugabe was elected Prime Minister in 1980. My life did not end. Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1989 and became President by popular vote in 1994. I was happy I was so wrong.
By the way, about Mugabe, I had had a suspicion about him. As soon as he was elected, he brought in the North Korean 50th Brigade, and bombarded the Matebeleland, the base of his opposition Mr Joshua Nkhomo, and killed hundreds of his supporters. We didn’t condemn the atrocity, because we were still caught in the rhetoric of the politically correct idea of “Black rule means free Africa.” We were punch-drunk and refused to see evil behind Robert Mugabe’s facade.
Lessons learned. No.1: It’s O.K. to be sceptical but leave a window open for optimism: humans are not always stupid. We do the right thing from time to time. Lesson. No. 2: Don’t get caught in the ideology and rhetoric. Rigid dogmatism and fundamentalism must always be questioned in politics and religion. Mr. Mugabe must have been condemned for atrocity then, even though he was a celebrated hero for freedom.