Debates
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Negacionismo |
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Is it not possible to return to a debate or
contributions which are not only substantial but have relevance
to the bulk of people who live on this planet and are NOT
Europeans. Every time someone feels compelled to write something
about supposed "denial" of events some nearly seventy years ago,
I feel the tremendous urge to yawn. Do we see the same supposed
concern about Leopold and Belgium or the annihilation of
indigenous peoples throughout the Americas? Of course we do not.
Because almost no one holding an official position or permanent
employment wants to talk about policies that have never been
repudiated.
Instead we have to listen to malicious and
hypocritical complaints about events which in all their horror
ENDED in 1945! No other country in recent history (more than 200
years) has ever had to pay such a price for its national
policies: the utter destruction of its political and economic
system. No one in my country can doubt that we have been made to
pay for the murders of our fathers and our grandfathers-- even
to this day. The only ones who are forgetting and denying are
those who still do not admit that their countries, their land
and wealth were all stolen from the murdered and enslaved
indigenous of North and South America, Australia, parts of
Africa-- and not one sous has been offered in reparations to the
families of murdered Indios or African slaves. Not to this day!
People who point this out and document this have
recently lost their jobs or are subject to marginalisation etc.
But, most esteemed colleagues, if we are still
unable to discuss the issue of denial and forgetfulness in full
honesty then we should leave it entirely alone and concentrate
on issues where some fruitful and substantive discussion is
possible.
I can think of a few:
Methods: This is one of the areas dealt with by
people in the Network of Concerned Historians. How do we recover
facts and document things when the very nature of documentation
and records is changing?
Testimony: How do we obtain and evaluate
testimony from witnesses who not only see what they experience
but see their experience through mass media? How do we record
and evaluate the evidence of the traumatised?
Public sources: How can forensic methods help
distinguish between facts and propaganda reported and recorded
in official sources and "embedded sources"?
Maybe there are historians in this HuD network
who have useful and thoughtful contributions to these questions
about history and historical research TODAY. I am sure that I am
not the only one who would appreciate more attention devoted to
this debate.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen/ Cordialement/
Cordiali saluti/ Yours sincerely/
Dr. Patrick Wilkinson
Institute for Advanced Cultural Studies - Europe
Kirchstrasse 32
D-40227 Düsseldorf
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