Imagine living where history is manipulated for the “common good.” Serbia and Iran are living examples of a slide down the icy slope of denial.

Serbian government propaganda claims the sanctioned massacre of thousands of Muslims and never happened.  Government buildings are being renamed in honor of the central perpetrators of these crimes.

The Iranian government denies the Holocaust occurred, calling it a Zionist conspiracy.  The children of Serbia and Iran are indoctrinated to believe falsehoods.  Willingly or not, and whether the people like it or not (since no permitted alternative exists), all are believers.

With the passage of time and the death of the truth, the reworked versions of history will imbed and perpetuate.  Those who believe in the Serbian massacres and the Holocaust are reviled as enemies of the lying shepherd’s herd.  As this and other history demonstrates, denial of truth is used to create or perpetuate otherwise tenuous power.

The history of man is a swirling bath of contradictions. Founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and George Washington were slave owners.  The brilliant John F. Kennedy and Benjamin Franklin were womanizers. Woodrow Wilson, the impetus for the League of Nations and the United Nations, was a racist. Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Martin Luther King led and were followed without fear and both of them had mistresses.  Throw Aristotle, a proponent of slavery, into the mix.

From living and failing as such in modern day America, each of these men would be cast to the scrap heap of shame and ridicule before or after making a mark. Which of these men’s stories should be sanitized in or purged from our history books? Should the monuments and books that honor them be burned or purged? Where in the continuum of “wrong” or “right” must a historic figurehead or event fall or rise before he or she or it is subject to erasure or veneration?

Where in the continuum does manipulation of history begin in America?

Thank God that Americans have the right to free expression of ideas, and free choice of what to believe. These are the foundations of freedom.

On a personal level, I am not proud things I have done and failed to do. I cannot erase my mistakes and remain at age 63 a work in progress. My mistakes were teaching moments.  When the lessons learned are used, I am a better man. When I ignore my failings, I let myself and those I love down.

This simple principle applies in society. What good comes to a society that selectively denies its history?

If being “woke” means American history is selectively cast to nothingness, then please count me out. Rather than being awakened, I am very tired.

Louis A. Sousa
Bristol