We live in spite of history, not because of it. Nothing at birth can equip us for a past so full of suffering and in which we had no agency. When we are born, we are given an identity, and we have to live and die by it. And despite our incredible flaws, we mortals, bless us, do a decent job of protecting this identity. But this should not misguide us. Behind each identity is a beating human heart, full of the same aspirations and fears as you or I.

History is basically to learn from human follies. And this is where human agency comes into action. You can choose to mimic your oppressors, or you can have a clean break and a fresh start. India and Israel chose the former. In Israel's ongoing genocide and an Indian owning today's East India Company, it shows. China, however, deserves all the credit for choosing the latter course of action and accomplishing a lot in doing so.

Shanghai is one place where you can see civilisation breaking the shackles of history and progressing at a breakneck speed. In its breathtaking skyline, you find the legacy of the international settlement, an entity formed by the merger of the British and American concessions, though not limited to them. The mark of other foreign forces, Japan, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Peru, Mexico and Switzerland, is also preserved in the buildings left behind, as is that of the French concession.

Then you come across the newly built skyscrapers. The infrastructure shrugs and moves past the colonial legacy as if it amounts to nothing. For a nation with five thousand years of recorded history, which still has a long way to go, a century of colonial oppression is........

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