A year later, memorials to the 7 October attacks use art, virtual reality and dark tourism to stir support for limitless violence. But there is a different way to remember
Includes fruitful comparisons with the response to anticolonial rebellions of ages past.
Honestly, even if it results in some excesses (which should of course be worked against and prevented as best as possible), I hope that the west gets a taste of their own medicine (and unlike western blood libel, everything the global south would have to accuse them of would be fully true and not even scratching the surface of the evil).
Human propensity to forget (forgiveness is another matter, but forgetting is inexcusable) strikes me as the doom of our species, if we let it continue as it is. There’s no reason why people all around the world should trust the Anglo or European regimes, no reason why they should look up to them while internalizing self-hate, not for 1000 years and then some. Every country and people ravaged by the west, should have made that trauma and struggle a pillar- perhaps even the pillar- of their identity, to maintain at any and all costs, so as to ensure it can never happen again. Every time people forget, entirely preventable disasters happen (like the fall of the Soviet Union, etc).
Oftentimes it’s “politically inconvenient” to hold onto and protect the memories of these crimes, but letting it go leads to destruction- the likes of which I’ve seen (thankfully not to the point of national destruction- or perhaps, not yet? Hopefully not) in my own family who was deeply mentally colonized, and which has certainly plagued the broader region (ASEAN) they came from. The crimes and genocides the west inflicted or instigated on ethnic Chinese across ASEAN, for instance (in regards to my family’s experience), have been swept under the rug- and similarly, the legacy of colonialism has been far too often forgotten (the Philippines being the most explicit example in the region- seriously, a country that brought back the Marcos strikes me as hopeless, no offense). The entire world should have remembered and taken whatever pains necessary so as to forever remember and maintain their independence- their economic, political, etc. independence and dignity.
Honestly, even if it results in some excesses (which should of course be worked against and prevented as best as possible), I hope that the west gets a taste of their own medicine (and unlike western blood libel, everything the global south would have to accuse them of would be fully true and not even scratching the surface of the evil).
Human propensity to forget (forgiveness is another matter, but forgetting is inexcusable) strikes me as the doom of our species, if we let it continue as it is. There’s no reason why people all around the world should trust the Anglo or European regimes, no reason why they should look up to them while internalizing self-hate, not for 1000 years and then some. Every country and people ravaged by the west, should have made that trauma and struggle a pillar- perhaps even the pillar- of their identity, to maintain at any and all costs, so as to ensure it can never happen again. Every time people forget, entirely preventable disasters happen (like the fall of the Soviet Union, etc).
Oftentimes it’s “politically inconvenient” to hold onto and protect the memories of these crimes, but letting it go leads to destruction- the likes of which I’ve seen (thankfully not to the point of national destruction- or perhaps, not yet? Hopefully not) in my own family who was deeply mentally colonized, and which has certainly plagued the broader region (ASEAN) they came from. The crimes and genocides the west inflicted or instigated on ethnic Chinese across ASEAN, for instance (in regards to my family’s experience), have been swept under the rug- and similarly, the legacy of colonialism has been far too often forgotten (the Philippines being the most explicit example in the region- seriously, a country that brought back the Marcos strikes me as hopeless, no offense). The entire world should have remembered and taken whatever pains necessary so as to forever remember and maintain their independence- their economic, political, etc. independence and dignity.