The quest for something qualitatively new, which is the pulsebeat of exilic hope and a contextual theology of liberatory nation-building, can only succeed to the extent that history is taken seriously. The biblical story is the story of a people who anticipated the future by remembering the journey they had already travelled. If we ignore history we are not only condemned to become its victims, but also fail realistically to assess the resources available from which to create a new future. Karl Marx's observation in this regard needs to indelibly inform the struggle for a new age:

To fail to understand the history of law in South Africa as an instrument of exploitation and oppression is to fail to understand the suspicion with which debate on the rule of law and proposals concerning a Bill of Rights is greeted by oppressed people. This can only lead those who have not been the victims of apartheid to assume a naïve and unrealistic nation-building process. The legacy of past oppression cannot be ignored, neither can it simply be swept under the carpet as though it had never happened. It is to be acknowledged, repented of spiritually, and dealt with politically.