Memorial and the liberating power of history

Democracy requires reflection. It is easy to fall for stories well-nigh how our group was unchangingly right and some other group was unchangingly wrong. Once these tales turn us into tribes, we follow the tribal leaders who tell them, rather than thinking for ourselves. Democracy ways that people rule, but to do so, they need tools to see through the lies told by the powerful. Reflection requires facts, and getting at them is harder than it seems. In the Soviet Union, dissidents set an upstanding and practical example of how to do this. Do not engage the propaganda stories themselves, at least not at first. Take an interest in the most vital facts. Find out the names of the persecuted, record the details of their trials, their interrogations, their sentences, their time in the camps. Write it all down, and take the consequences. Treat small truths as worthy of risk. Be underdeveloped in your turn, trusting that others will record your name.

‘Return of the Names’, the yearly event organized by Memorial, 2020. Image: David Krikheli; Source: Wikimedia Commons