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polly7

(20,582 posts)
Tue Jan 26, 2016, 09:24 PM Jan 2016

Faking History

JANUARY 26, 2016

by LUCIANA BOHNE

Singing “The Internationale” today in Ukraine is punishable by up to ten years in prison. The Kiev Rada passed a law in December making it a crime to deny the “criminal nature” of the Soviet regime (1917-1991). From selling a Soviet-era postcard, to membership in the communist party, to singing the Soviet national anthem, the law penalizes all symbols and activities connected to the USSR.

Volodymyr Chemerys calls attention to the law’s violations of human rights in a recent article in CounterPunch:


“History is being invented in vast quantities … it’s more important to have historians, especially skeptical historians, than ever before,” said Eric Hobsbawm in 2002. Dutifully, professionally, as it happens, seventy international historians, experts on Ukraine, wrote an open letter to Petro Poroshenko urging him not to sign into law the bills proposed in April 2015. They wrote:

The potential consequences of both these laws are disturbing. Not only would it be a crime to question the legitimacy of an organization (UPA) that slaughtered tens of thousands of Poles in one of the most heinous acts of ethnic cleansing in the history of Ukraine, but also it would exempt from criticism the OUN, one of the most extreme political groups in Western Ukraine between the wars, and one which collaborated with Nazi Germany at the outset of the Soviet invasion in 1941. It also took part in anti-Jewish pogroms in Ukraine and, in the case of the Melnyk faction, remained allied with the occupation regime throughout the war. . . . Any legal or ‘administrative’ distortion of history is an assault on the most basic purpose of scholarly inquiry: pursuit of truth. Any official attack on historical memory is unjust. Difficult and contentious issues must remain matters of debate. The 1.5 million Ukrainians who died fighting the Nazis in the Red Army are entitled to respect . . .. Those who regard victory over Nazi Germany as a pivotal historical event should neither feel intimidated nor excluded from the nation.


Indeed, historical truth is more urgent than ever. Clearly, raping the past means forcing an illegitimate and unwanted future—one not in the interest of the majority of people.

The new century promises bleak, as Hobsbawm noted:

A tentative forecast: war in the 21st century is not likely to be as murderous as it was in the 20th. But armed violence, creating disproportionate suffering and loss, will remain omnipresent and endemic – occasionally epidemic – in a large part of the world. The prospect of a century of peace is remote. 2002 Counterpunch article


Faking history is a form of burning books. Where books are officially burned, people follow. It’s already happened— on 2 May 2014 in the Hall of Trade Unions in Odessa set on fire by Kiev-junta-related neo-Nazi thugs. Over one hundred people died, including women and children. This was real history and real terrorism happening. The media ignored it.


Full article: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/01/26/faking-history/
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Faking History (Original Post) polly7 Jan 2016 OP
Glaring omissions, exaggeration, and... Mr_Jefferson_24 Jan 2016 #1

Mr_Jefferson_24

(8,559 posts)
1. Glaring omissions, exaggeration, and...
Wed Jan 27, 2016, 05:17 AM
Jan 2016

...outright fabrication litter the "official/accepted" historical record for so many of our most important events and time periods in human history. Fortunately, truth often seems to have a way of bubbling to the surface over time. Unfortunately, it can take decades and longer before it ever does.

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