Forgetting to Remember
Is it a quirk of the mind, or something deeper?
Depending on your vintage, names like Peter Manuel, Myra Hindley, Ian Brady, Peter Sutcliffe, The Wests etc, trip off the tongue like toxic waste.
We never seem to have any problem in remembering the names( and often the gruesome details of the crimes) of those whose actions have scarred society.
Why then, if we so readily recollect the perpetrators, do we have such difficulty in remembering the victims?
The names of the guilty seem to be etched on our brains, the identities of the victims, however, have slipped into oblivion.
Perhaps Marc Antony( or rather Will Shakespeare) was spot on:
The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones;
Like so many aspects of our lives, it is all about perspective. What you see, or rather what you may want to see, depends on your predetermined point of view.
Apologists for the fascist regime that took Italy into the war on the side of the Nazis observed that, at least Mussolini got the trains to run on time, a feat that had before, and has since, proven beyond the skills of any other leader of that country.
The genocide in Abyssinia seems, inexplicably, to be less memorable than the punctuality of locomotives!
Our own William Wallace, whether the factual or the fictional variety, was a Freedom Fighter to most Scots and a terrorist to the English Establishment.
Even the Suffragettes, whose struggle was merited and largely principled and who are being honoured on the centennial of their core achievement are beneficiaries of our selective historical interpretations.
One of the most dangerous suffragette attacks occurred in Dublin in 1912. Mary Leigh, Gladys Evans, Lizzie Baker and Mabel Capper attempted to set fire to the Theatre Royal during a packed lunchtime matinee attended by Asquith. They left a canister of gunpowder close to the stage and threw petrol and lit matches into the projection booth which contained highly combustible film reels. Earlier in the same day, Mary Leigh had hurled a hatchet towards Asquith, narrowly missing him and instead slicing into the ear of Irish MP John Redmond.
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