Gwynne Dyer: Rewriting History No Way to Rehabilitate a Nation's Past
[Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles are published in 45 countries.]
The Georgians took down the last statue of Stalin last week....
They're planning to replace it with a monument to "victims of the Russian aggression" in the 2008 war, so the history they're peddling in Gori will still be based on lies. (It was Georgia that started the war with Russia in 2008.)
But the bigger lies will be told in Russia, and they will be told mainly about Stalin....
Russia's history in the 20th century was an unmitigated and unnecessary disaster - the first half tragic and very bloody, the second half merely impoverished and oppressive.
Even today, Russia has not regained the rank among the developed countries that it held a century ago. What can one do with such a history but deny and rewrite it?
One can tell the truth. Germany's 20th-century history was also terrible, and Germans had to bear a burden of historical guilt for harming others far heavier than anything Russians should feel for the crimes of their own imperial past....
Read entire article at New Zealand Herald
The Georgians took down the last statue of Stalin last week....
They're planning to replace it with a monument to "victims of the Russian aggression" in the 2008 war, so the history they're peddling in Gori will still be based on lies. (It was Georgia that started the war with Russia in 2008.)
But the bigger lies will be told in Russia, and they will be told mainly about Stalin....
Russia's history in the 20th century was an unmitigated and unnecessary disaster - the first half tragic and very bloody, the second half merely impoverished and oppressive.
Even today, Russia has not regained the rank among the developed countries that it held a century ago. What can one do with such a history but deny and rewrite it?
One can tell the truth. Germany's 20th-century history was also terrible, and Germans had to bear a burden of historical guilt for harming others far heavier than anything Russians should feel for the crimes of their own imperial past....