Collective social memory and social engineering are powerful mechanisms that have been employed in the establishment and reinforcement of Nationalist, hyper-patriotic convictions. Such convictions are instrumental to maintaining a persistent, unquestionable nostalgia around a Nation-state and its affairs. The residues of historical exceptionalism and orientalism encompassed within the meta-narratives of how, when, why and in what circumstances Nation-states or the affairs of Nation-States were created and sustained, are in many ways overlooked or dismissed. Consequently, like the old saying goes: You say the same lie over and over and over again, pretty soon people start to believe it as if it were true…next thing you know there are gasconading politicians, dedicated monuments, parades and fanfare, egregious foreign policy measures and cultural tropes embodying this meta-narrative, that in many cases does not correlate with actual reality or historical fact. For example: The assertion that Christopher Columbus “discovered” America or that the Vietnamese “attacked” the US in the Gulf of Tonkin or that the Reagan administration “knew nothing” about the Iran Contra Scandal, all exemplify this quiet well. NEVER FORGET: Governments have always lied to their own people and will go to great lengths in order uphold their hegemony, delegitimize dissent and perpetuate a condition in which the masses are fully engaged in the fantasy.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 06:01:02 +0000
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