MR T KING, May 1. The author is correct. There was a shared history between the respective nations. But so what? There was a shared history between the black slaves and their owners. A shared history does not, in itself, denote anything of a positive or beneficial nature. Certainly, it did not necessarily incorporate equality.

Nor did the occurrence of largely incidental benefits represent a validation of such a relationship. Particularly when such benefits occurred within a context of peripheral and non-integral patronage. The assumption any future economic, social or political state of existence has to occur within the context of a continuance of the current situation appears unimaginative, constrictive and not based upon reality. The future of my nation will take place in relation to the wider international reality. The very essence of autonomous self-determination is, by definition, liberty of choice and alignment. To suggest a nation must be constrained by the dictates of a situation that is, like it or not, passing into history is socially and morally unrealistic and untenable.

H Roland ap Watcyn Commercial Street Griffithstown