What were our parents thinking?

By Bonny Ibhawoh

In a recent interview, Christopher Till who is the director of the Apartheid Museum in South Africa talks about the reaction of children and young South Africans when they visit the museum. He noted that many of the children, who were born after the end of apartheid, visit the museum with their parents. What he found most remarkable was how the children interact with each other. After their exposure to the cruelty and brutality of the apartheid system, one question always comes out of their mouths: “What were our parents thinking?”

This speaks volumes. Times have changed. A new generation of South Africans simply cannot wrap their minds around what would have motivated their parents to create or support the cruel and inhuman system of apartheid. “How could our parents have treated other human beings like this?,” I can imagine them asking themselves?

There is a lesson here for all us in the positions we take on the key moral questions of today – racism, homophobia, poverty and injustice. What positions are we taking today that will prompt our children to ask incredulously, a generation from now:

“What were our parents thinking?”