The Memory of Nations

"A tombstone is memory made concrete.  Human memory is the ladder on which a country and a people advance.  We must remember not only the good things, but also the bad; the bright spots, but also the darkness."  -Yang Jisheng

I came upon this quote at the beginning of a book I am currently in the process of reading called, aptly, "Tombstone".  While I could have gone on quoting just from the second chapter of this book, this small segment struck me as not only as universal in its scope, but also very relevant in this day and age when memory seems to be short lived.  Whether its a collective effort to forget certain events due to their horrific nature or whether its selective amnesia in which we slowly forget that which we lived through or that which occurred in our past, it seems that almost every nation struggles with this idea of memory.  Some, to be honest, intentionally scrub memory from the annals of history, attempting to create an idealistic society in which everything has and always will be glamorous.  These societies are the totalitarian ones, such as China at the outset of its Communist experiment and to a certain extent presently, yet no matter which society you live in, there will be parts of history that are glossed over, not given the attention they deserve, and relegated to the dark recesses of history that are rarely explored.  Even the United States has those instances in history that we would, I assume, be very willing to forget due to their nature and their ability to cast a shadow on our history in general.  How much time do we spend studying the internment camps that we set up for the Chinese and Japanese during WWII?  How often do we go back and study the Trail of Tears during which thousands upon thousands of Native Americans were forcibly marched across our country in a relocation effort so that the "white" people could have take their land?  How often do we actually revisit the role or racism in our country and its protracted relevance in today's time?   And to take it a step further, where are the "tombstones" to help us remember? 

We have moved forward in very meaningful ways from these incidents that I have mentioned.  We have not had internment camps since WWII and we have moved light years away from the entrenched racism that used to engulf a large portion of the population.  Are there still so-called "racists" in our country?  Absolutely, and I don't know if we will ever be able to fully rid ourselves of racism, not just towards African Americans, but towards any minority.  There will always be those people who judge others before truly knowing them based on skin color or religious preference.  I was going to say that we have not forced the relocation of large groups of people since the Trail of Tears, and in part I feel I would be correct, yet here there is a sticking point for me.  As I was about to write that, my thoughts moved to the present and what we now call eminent domain.  While not even close in scope or in means and methods utilized, eminent domain is still an issue that affects people.  It happened with the building of the Interstate Highway system and its happening today with the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada to Texas.  Regardless, if we don't remember our past or it is slowly pulled away from us, how can we meaningfully move forward and progress as a society?  For the most part, I feel we have progressed as a society and a nation, yet there is always more we can do.  One important thing we can do is focus on every aspect of our history in the classroom.  There shouldn't be one aspect that is glossed over in an effort to focus on something more jubilant and "happy".  There should be equal time spent on our nation's mistakes as well as our accomplishments, yet I feel that history is trending towards more focus on accomplishments than not.  If we are collectively made to forget certain aspects of our history either through "glossing" over them or not giving them enough attention, then at some point we could make the same mistakes and sink backwards instead of steadily progressing forwards. 

In today's society where everything is available to us instantaneously, one would think that it is harder to forget, yet I would beg to differ.  With the steady stream of information, we are inundated to an extent never before witnessed, and with the overwhelming flow of information, we can't necessary absorb everything while also remembering our past.  Its not always easy to look back on the mistakes that we as individuals or as a larger segment, we as a nation made.  The mistakes, errors in judgement, or the travesties are dark spots that many would like to scrub away rather than memorialize them.  We must go further than memory though.  If we remember, than we can move forward, but I would posit that we can only move forward if we seek to understand why and how we made the mistakes in the past.  If we can come to an understanding of "why" something happened, then we can truly avoid making those same mistakes in the future.  We can not remember as a nation unless we start at an individual level.  We must all as individuals seek to understand the past while at the same time not letting it dictate how we move forward.  Sure, easy to say, yet much harder to do.  I myself don't always find it easy in my own life to correct mistakes and move forward without making new ones.  We will all make mistakes as individuals and as nations, yet unless we can admit to the mistake, not blot it out, and then move forward, we will end up stagnating.  Convoluted, confusing, yes, but important in my mind, especially in this day and age when it seems we feel we can create our own history or alter our past history to our needs of the present.   Regardless of where you live, do feel that your country has a coherent memory of the past in all its gloom and glory?  Or does your country suffer from amnesia and is likely apt to repeat mistakes?