Memory Police
Government “state-ordained truth” memory police are telling writers that they can only write the politically correct version of historical facts even if it is a lie.
Among the ways in which freedom is being chipped away in Europe, one of the less obvious is the legislation of memory. More and more countries have laws saying you must remember and describe this or that historical event in a certain way, sometimes on pain of criminal prosecution if you give the wrong answer. What the wrong answer is depends on where you are. In Switzerland, you get prosecuted for saying that the terrible thing that happened to the Armenians in the last years of the Ottoman empire was not a genocide. In Turkey, you get prosecuted for saying it was. What is state-ordained truth in the Alps is state-ordained falsehood in Anatolia.
Let me be clear. I believe it is very important that nations, states, peoples and other groups (not to mention individuals) should face up, solemnly and publicly, to the bad things done by them or in their name. The West German leader Willy Brandt falling silently to his knees in Warsaw before a monument to the victims and heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto is, for me, one of the noblest images of postwar European history. For people to face up to these things, they have to know about them in the first place. So these subjects must be taught in schools as well as publicly commemorated.
Date posted: Friday, October 17th, 2008 12:50 pm | Under category: Big Brother/Nanny State, amoral society, brain washing, control freaks
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Congratulations to The Guardian. For once, they didn’t write crap. That’s certainly a welcome change. As the song goes, “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves!” - Or in other words: “Up yours, EU!”
George Orwell was so prescient!
I wonder if the Brits even perceive the deadly irony under their very noses?
Yes. As a matter of fact, not only is Britain enslaving itself as a EU member, it is also being enslaved by its own government. It is one of the few countries left with a tradition of limited government and individual liberty. These are generally speaking alien concepts to continental Europe and the EU is currently a prime example of that.
Oops.. Well just in case you hadn’t guessed, that anonymous guy was me.
Indeed, the mask if “off!”