"Selective" memories and Historical revisionism..

[After urging you to post it would be utterly hypocritical not to post something... and of all things I chose the following, grave post about historical revising (or revisionism or revision, I know not the exact correspondence...). I must be losing my mind :-P]
[ I'd also like to thank Dubeth for pointing out some errors, typos, and telling me the word was revisionism - your editing was much appreciated!]

This picture, made by el "roto", and published in Spain's El País says :
"Don't trust your historical memory
We will tell you what you['ll] remember"
[The picture is copyright, you must not make money out of it, et cetera and so on and so forth...]

We all know what a "selective memory" is. We see people with it every day on the news, from politicians and entrepreneurs, to criminals and liars - it is also a "condition" many honest people with fear for their lives seem to suffer from.

"Historical revisionism" is little more than taking what one knows about the past and tailoring it to the present agenda - if changing the facts, twisting the truth, omitting critical information and outright lying are required, so be it.

One case of both is the obituary most media presented on former US President Gerald Ford, deceased on December 2006. Now, "Respect for the dead" has been a tradition since our most distant ancestors started burying the departed (it was recently discovered it was first done in Australia) but the insidious agreement made with Indonesian dictator Suharto regarding East Timor, on Henry Kissinger's advice, is an historical shame that went completely unmentioned.
(For additional info check this article - Gerald Ford and East Timor - on the most peculiar blog I've come across: Martini Republic)

What the example above indicates, and the picture illustrates so well, is a tendency to trade Historical truth for comfortable - or convenient - fallacies. Fabrications that might be perceived as factual if repeated enough times, like the writer said.

Such is the case, for example, when dictators receive state honours or military funerals when they die - there is no clear an example as Pinochet's, who was behind the murder of 3 Ministers of Defense before finally orchestrating the assassination of the President of Chile and installing a regime of fear; you disregard all the crimes, all the victims and all the suffering of their families. The "selective memory" of some of those called to the stand - figuratively or literally - perpetuate a feeling of injustice and steal our right to, if not justice and truth, peace and memory.

Knowledge is power, the old adage goes. I don't believe it anymore - everyone remotely informed knew there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq (let's not go into discussions about the American role in the Middle East - a thousand books wouldn't suffice) and it still wasn't enough; the death of Anna Politkovskaya in Russia is a different case of the same sort.

What I do believe is verified information and unadulterated memory are indeed our only possible defense from lies and information overload (should I also say "spin-doctoring"?). Our personal experiences and an active and critical citizenship "against" a corrupt world seem too little, too late; hence why we must share information, experiences and knowledge (which requires education and freedom of speech and press) never letting ourselves fall into indifference, nor, above all, the hands of men and women like those in El Roto's illustration..

[As always, it goes without saying so I won't repeat it, feeback is encouraged and valued]