History is not simply made up of facts, figures, monuments, heroes and villains but rather from layers of experiences. This week is a week that will see the removal of the Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town (UCT) and its relocation. This, albeit an important issue, does not, of course, solve the myriad of other problems facing UCT, Cape Town or the country.

I view the #RhodesMustFall movement as important because firstly it has been driven by students and secondly because it highlights the power of South Africans to define their own space and to demand change. This is just a small victory in the broader fight to transform the university and ensure that it begins to reflect, but more importantly articulate, the values and aspirations of the students and to reflect a changing South Africa.

We cannot afford to forget about all the other issues that we need to tackle. However, all of that takes work, and we will need to be up to the task if we are able to realise the progressive change that is needed to build on our constitutional foundations and the gains of the past 21 years.

This week may be important for the student-led movement at UCT as #RhodesHasFallen but it must not allow us to lose focus on other critical issues.

The Presidency has received the Farlam Commission’s report on the Marikana Massacre of 16 August 2012. This event may seem like a distant memory, as something that happened in a different time, but this is an event that more of us should be engaged with.

Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, senior counsel for the families of the deceased miners, had this to say at the first day of the Farlam Commission: “These are not just figures… these are people. These are people who lost their loved ones… The commission is about dead people… it should be about justice done to the families of those who died.“

There are so many injustices that we have to deal with. The removal of a statue may seem trivial to many when we consider that the dignity of many is trampled upon. In isolation, the removal of the statue will obviously not correct all that is wrong but it gives us an opportunity to coalesce and begin to define our own future.

We have a very long road ahead and the path will be tumultuous and imperfect. For us to truly appreciate the challenges ahead, we only need to look at the xenophobic events that have unfolded in Durban over the past couple of weeks.

On 7 April this week, we saw the world mark 21 years since the Rwandan Genocide began. That day would see the start of a 100 days of bloody violence that resulted in the slaughter of a million people, yes a million people, constituting as much as 20% of the country’s total population and 70% of the Tutsi then living in Rwanda.

This is a day of remembrance and is observed across the world but at the time, 21 years ago, the world stood by as over a million Africans were slaughtered. This inaction is something that still hangs heavy over the continent.

In 2008, South Africa saw a spate of xenophobic attacks and more recently we saw similar events in Soweto and Philippi. It may be easy to forget but the violence of 2008 saw the killing of 62 people, and yet we still are told these are not xenophobic in nature.

In Isipingo, about 19 km from Durban, around 250 mostly Congolese nationals, many of them refugees, were attacked and as a result have been unable to return to their homes or businesses.

Government denies the violence is xenophobia and peddles the story it is motivated by criminality rather than xenophobic tendencies. This denial does not help us confront our own prejudice and uproot the xenophobic sentiments that are leading to this violence. History has proved that the denial of the truth is not the best approach to adopt and that in the process, lives are lost, as we will all remember from the HIV/Aids debacle.

It may be easier for us to confront the demons of our past. It may be easier for us to agitate for the removal of a statue but the hard work comes in when we have to confront the fact that, despite the change of a road name, a young South African child, half naked, is still begging on that very street.

We must confront our own imperfections, acknowledge that in some way we are broken, and that the only way to define our collective future is if we begin to work together with the idea that we can do better.

The events that unfolded in Garissa, Kenya reflect how broken we are as a continent. I am reminded that 17 people were killed at Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris. As a result of that 11 African leaders marched in Paris. One hundred and forty eight people were murdered in Garissa, Kenya. Not even a postcard was received.

The events of Marikana, Soweto, Philippi, Chatsworth and Isipingo must say to us all that we can do so much better. We must remember “these are not just figures … these are people. These are people who lost their loved ones”. We must make the choice before it is too late. “Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” DM