I wouldn’t. I think that, though there have been terrible aspects of history and many billions of innocent lives lost, everything happened for a reason.

I mean, had we not suffered through apartheid, do you really think our country would be as politically democratic as we are now? Don’t you think other countries have (knowingly or not) learnt from our terrible experience? Had we not had apartheid, there WOULD have been something else. There aren’t many countries that come to mind when you try to think of one without a history of some sort of disastrous, violent or unsavoury events. Every country from the mighty America (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pearl Harbour), to the “third-world” India (Pakistan and the Kashmir riots), from the largest Russia (Stalin, Trotsky), to the tiny Vatican City (its battle for independence)

Then there’s all the brilliant things that have happened; like the inventions of the wheel, electricity, TV(!!!), like the trips to outer space and the landing on the moon. There’s the many medical marvels and technological advancements that never seize to boggle the mind. There’s the end of apartheid, which made us all appreciate what we have today more than ever before. I think that’s something that comes with all devastating events, like the 2004 tsunami and the 9/11 terrorist attacks; they all make us appreciate what we have even more.

I was going to make this a joke and quote my friends at school, who at the beginning of physics this year, wished that Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein were never born, but I realised again that our world today would never be the way it is without them. Every single person in this world plays a significant role in history. Every single aspect of history plays a role in our present and future. Without yesterday, today cannot exist and tomorrow is a far from distant thought...