Shakespeare said it best when he had the ruler of Verona warn the houses of Capulet and Montague to either work out their issues or a pox on both their houses. A similar situation exists now at the site Babi Yar in the Ukraine. Here, in 1941, 33,000 Jews were killed over two days, thrown into a ravine which was filled with their bodies and the ground heaved for days afterwards. A famous Russian poet wrote a poem known throughout the world about this site and event and its meaning to humanity.
And in today's world? We have a new Ukraine which wishes to incorporate this slaughter into the other slaughters of the Ukraine, those killed by the Russians and those killed by Nazis when they broke away from them at the end of the war. Just simply fold one event into the other appears to be a good idea to them. The fact that one was a manifestation of a global plan to rid the world of an entire ethnic group and the other two were political issues, the Ukrainian slaughter by Russia evil, but not a Holocaust of global proportions in any manner and the other was the killing of collaborators. Definitely NOT the same.
There exists now another question. I felt for the Ukrainians when Putin invaded them and could see in these actions the old Russia rearing its ugly head and the valiant Ukrainians fighting for their independence. But then I remember Putin accusing Kiev of bringing back to life the fascists and the anti Semites - not that Putin is such a god friend to the Jews, but anyway, he is right in that matter. "...while Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko did admit to Ukrainian complicity in the Holocaust during a speech before the Knesset in December, his signing of a bill honoring the UPA, a nationalist militia that historians say took part in the Holocaust has ruffled feathers in the west."
So what now? A pox on both houses?
But this is all part and parcel of a new and sick political theory that is spreading round the world and that is the erasure of history, any history that displeases one should just be written out, erased, destroyed and those who bring it up must be punished. That means that slavery is erased and mascots replaced. Figures in history are wiped from the books as if they also were never there so no more Robert E. Lee and no more Lord Amherst and who knows who will be next. I read Cecil B. Rhodes is on the hit list. Whether one was a good person or bad, or somewhere in between, does not matter, for history is history and facts are facts and this must be remembered. Erasing history will only bring us to repeat it or even worse.
There is a short story called "Harrison Bergeron" wherein one boy who is handsome, an athlete, extremely intelligent and otherwise gifted and talented is considered an insult to society for he stands out as someone different, even better, and thus he is given items that will make him ugly, slow him down, impede his athletic abilities and make it hard for him to use his intellectual faculties. Is this the world we now want - a vanilla one, where no one is different, where no one is allowed to say anything that might hurt some tender feeling of another - and by that I mean some exaggerated ridiculous feeling. Does it not mean that we all need to put aside our differences, all that make us who we are, the marvelous varied mosaic of humanity and turn into Stepford wives and men and children?
Erasure of history serves the incumbents who have done wrong, be it here in CV or in Russia or in America, in Flint or NYC or wherever - even Fort Lee! It follows the theory that people like to hear only cheery news, not negative items for fear of upsetting their frail balance in life. Really? Is it not time that we grow up and stop saying things like that even as we go pouring over YouTube looking for videos of weirdness, of violence, of embarrassment? If we have no negativity then we have nothing positive for one needs the other, else how to tell the difference.
As adults - and even as college students or kids in school - we cannot be protected from all. I, too, would like to wrap all my grandchildren in cotton, stick them in a huge closet where they will be safe and take them out for controlled airings every week! But that cannot be done so the best thing is to help people grow and that means even looking into the negative so that we might fix it and bring about goodness. People cannot sit there all their live, suck on a teat made of sugar and think all is rosy tra la.
And for those who feel that politics is just too rough for them, then do not expect much out of life, for if the right is not fought for, then the playground you wish to have will go by the wayside for someone must stand up for it and see that all is done right. If one cedes one's political voice then we end in a dictatorship where there will be no need for a playground and no freedom to go there in the first place. Life demands work and care. It demands involvement and sometimes that demand is hard and there are negative sides as well as positive but this is what must be done.
And if one wished to ignore this, then do this at your own peril and a pox on your house, for I will not and neither will any thinking adult. Want that tennis court fixed? Then make sure that there is a proper administration handling the money in a responsible manner. Want good foreign policy? Then make sure the people you elect have the brains and the morality to make it so. Nothing is for free in this life and ignorance, deliberate ignorance makes no friends and serves no purpose.
Amen!
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