Do you need angels to contribute?

From a facebook posting by Jeffrey Seow, which made reference to this story on the CNN website. It's very thought-provoking. And I can add to the list of names that Jeffrey mentioned: that of David Brown and Stamford Raffles. They had set foot in the Prince of Wales Island too, Brown almost permanently. They were no angels either but both had made tremendous contributions to this part of the world

Far away from Malaysia, on the other side of the world, a piece of history, a statue erected in 1895, has been pulled down and chucked into the river. He was a slave trader, among many things, but that wasn't why his statue was erected, although it was why it was torn down and chucked. The statue was erected to commemorate his philanthropy.

History is history, and elsewhere I wrote this, and have thought to write this again for the rest of you to read,

'Why didn't anyone think of creating a memorial to capture, the pain, the anguish, the utter wrongness of slavery and put it up adjacent to the Colston statue, to say, this is what happened, and that there opposite is the one to helped make it happen?
Recently Facebook banned me for failing to meet its community standards on dangerous organisations because, in a FB group, Picture Perfect Penang, I had had a post on the Japanese Occupation and included a real historical photo of a German U-boat pulling up alongside Swettenham Pier, in George Town, Penang.

After studying the 'offensive " photo, it occurred to me that FB was reacting to the German Naval Flag flying from the sub's mast that was made up of a Swastika over a cross. It was not a Swastika arm-band. It was not a bunch of people cheering and waving Swastikas.

But I got banned for 24 hours.

Further back, in Penang, they changed the name of the road where I was born, Scott Road named after Captain Francis Light's business partner, Captain James Scott, to D. S. Ramanathan Road, after the first Mayor of the city of George Town, replacing the memory of someone whose connection with the island went back to 1786, with someone at the center of a much smaller event in 1957.

Without history, without understanding it, without learning, there can be no growth and development.
World War II and the Japanese Occupation of Malaya and yes the arrival of the Germans at Penang, all these things happened.

Captain James Scott, reprehensible as his actions may have been -- he was Penang's Shylock, loaning out sums and then seizing the properties of all and sundry who could not repay his terms on time -- happened.

History happened.

Instead of trying to pretend it did not, why don't we take the effort to explain what happened and why it was so wrong?

I guess because it is easier to destroy than to create.

Sad, that.'

We need to move from tolerance to acceptance. I am reminded of the legendary words of a self-proclaimed famous pirate, one Jack Sparrow, 'The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can’t do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can’t. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you’ll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can’t bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy?'

And so, despite what is happening over there in the homeland of Asia's biggest drug pusher, England, I choose to remember that if had not been for Captains James Lancaster, Alexander Hamilton, Francis Light, James Scott, and later other officials from the Honourable the (English) East India Company, the Madras and Bengal Governments, and those sent over by the Colonial Office, we would not be anywhere near where we are today, enjoying the conveniences we have today, and I would not have had the education I had, that now allows me to write this.